Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
2. The DEFENDANTS [RJR Nabisco] knowingly sell their products to organized crime, arrange for secret payments from organized crime, and launder such proceeds in the United States or offshore venues known for bank secrecy. DEFENDANTS have laundered the illegal proceeds of members of Italian, Russian, and Colombian organized crime through financial institutions in New York City, including The Bank of New York, Citibank N.A., and Chase Manhattan Bank. DEFENDANTS have even chosen to do business in Iraq, in violation of U.S. sanctions, in transactions that financed both the Iraqi regime and terrorist groups.
3. The RJR DEFENDANTS have, at the highest corporate level, determined that it will be a part of their operating business plan to sell cigarettes to and through criminal organizations and to accept criminal proceeds in payment for cigarettes by secret and surreptitious means, which under United States law constitutes money laundering. The officers and directors of the RJR DEFENDANTS facilitated this overarching money-laundering scheme by restructuring the corporate structure of the RJR DEFENDANTS, for example, by establishing subsidiaries in locations known for bank secrecy such as Switzerland to direct and implement their money-laundering schemes and to avoid detection by U.S. and European law enforcement.
This overarching scheme to establish a corporate structure and business plan to sell cigarettes to criminals and to launder criminal proceeds was implemented through many subsidiary schemes across THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY. Examples of these subsidiary schemes are described in this Complaint and include: (a.) Laundering criminal proceeds received from the Alfred Bossert money-laundering organization; (b.) Money laundering for Italian organized crime; (c.) Money laundering for Russian organized crime through The Bank of New York; (d.) The Walt money-laundering conspiracy; (e.) Money laundering through cut outs in Ireland and Belgium; (f.) Laundering of the proceeds of narcotics sales throughout THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY by way of cigarette sales to criminals in Spain; (g.) Laundering criminal proceeds in the United Kingdom; (h.) Laundering criminal proceeds through cigarette sales via Cyprus; and (i.) Illegal cigarette sales into Iraq.
--European Union indictment of RJR Nabisco - (a curiously underplayed story in the United States. Kraft ad money, anyone?)
It's October right now, so I've decided to run a special feature this week on HongPong.com: Republican drug trafficking - the long love affair among America's right-wing with illicit smuggling and narcotics operations. Barry Seal, the great CIA drug trafficker who met his end after he threatened to talk about CIA-Contra-Cocaine activities, would say:
Let's set the scene a bit. NarcoNews.com is the spot to go for the real dish on the "War on Drugs." Why not a bit of Catherine Austin Fitts report on this: I hadn't actually run into this until now, so I suggest everyone check it out. We're gonna take the narco-ball and run with it... Fitts was a top executive at Dillon, Read & Co. Inc, and saw a lot of weird shit go down there, and a vast level of fraud at the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the 1980s.
Catherine Austin Fitts presented: A Six-Part Series for The Narco News Bulletin starting February 27, 2006: Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. and the Aristocracy of Prison Profits: Part I: Inside the Financial World, Government Agencies and their Private Contractors Lies a Hidden System of Money Laundering, Drug Trafficking and Rigged Stock Market Riches
“Make a Law, Make a Business”
— Old New Jersey street saying
There is a strongly held myth in America. The myth says that large corporations are efficient. They have big profits. They have lots of capital to hire the best people, the best accountants and the best law firms. Everyone looks so spiffy. Their technology is the latest. The best thing for the economy, sings the siren song, is for inefficient government to defer to corporate leaders and corporate “survival of the fittest.” Powerful corporations, the myth goes, earned their power through performance in the marketplace by providing the best services and products.
The real truth on the corporate model is far darker, however, and can be found by understanding our current central banking-warfare economic model and the resulting total economic return of activities. That means not just looking at the corporate profits and growth in stock price, but the true cost to people, the environment and government of a particular corporate activity. This necessitates understanding the economy as an ecosystem that is a dynamic living system in places. If corporate profits come from laundering narcotics trafficking used to destroy communities, and from government contracts used to build expensive prisons crammed full of small time non-violent drug distributors and customers, then they are part of a “negative return on investment” economy. This is an economy where the real cost of things is hidden behind secret black budgets, complex government finances, under-the-table deals, market manipulations and economic and military warfare, until they finally show up in the most irrefutable ways: environmental destruction and the exhaustion and death of communities. I refer to this destructive economic force as “the tapeworm” — a financial parasite that weakens and even kills its host.......
...........Bush climbed through Republican politics to become Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Ford Administration. After spending four years displaced by the Carter Administration, Bush was now Reagan’s Vice President with Executive Order authority for the National Security Council (NSC) and U.S. intelligence and enforcement agencies. Bush’s new authority was married with expanded powers to outsource sensitive work to private contractors. Such work could be funded through the non-transparent financial mechanisms available through the National Security Act of 1947, and the CIA Act of 1949.
This was a secret source of money for funding powerful new weaponry and surveillance technology and operations owned, operated or controlled by private corporations.[3] Carter’s massive layoffs at the CIA had created plenty of private contractor capacity looking for work.[4] An assassination attempt on President Reagan’s life two months after the inauguration meant that Vice President Bush and his team were called on to play an expanded role. Meantime, Nicholas Brady continued as an intimate friend and collaborator from his position as Chairman of Dillon Read.[5]
........According to Dillon Read, the firm’s average return on equity for the years 1982-1989 was 29 percent. This is a very strong performance, and compares to First Boston, Solomon, Shearson and Morgan Stanley’s average returns of 26 percent , 15 percent, 18 percent and 31 percent respectively.[13] Given what we now know from the European Union’s lawsuit and other legal actions against RJR Nabisco and its executives, this begs the question of what Dillon’s profits would have been if the firm had not made a small fortune reinvesting the proceeds of — if we are to believe the European Union — cigarette sales to organized crime including the profits generated by narcotics flowing into the communities of America through the Latin American drug cartels.
To understand the flow of drug money into and through Wall Street and corporate stocks like RJR Nabisco during the 1980s, it is useful to look more closely at the flow of drugs from Latin America during the period — and the implied cash flows of narco dollars that they suggest. Two documented situations involve Mena, Arkansas and South Central Los Angeles, California.
And a little slice from Part II:
Narco Dollars in the 1980s — Mena, Arkansas (March 1, 2006)
During the 1980s, a sometime government agent named Barry Seal lead a smuggling operation that delivered a significant amount of narcotics estimated to be as much as $5 billion from Latin America through an airport in Mena, Arkansas.[1] According to investigative reporters and researchers knowledgable about Mena, the operation had protection from the highest levels of the National Security Council then under the leadership of George H.W. Bush and staffed by Oliver North. According to investigative reporter and author Barry Hopsicker, when Seal was assassinated in February 1986, Vice President George H.W. Bush’s personal phone number was found in his wallet. Through Hopsicker’s efforts, Barry Seal’s records also divulged a little known piece of smuggling trivia — RJR executives in Central America had helped Seal smuggle contraband into the U.S. in the 1970s.[2]
The arms and drug running operation in Mena continued after Seal’s assasination. Eight months later, Seal’s plane, the “Fat Lady,” was shot down in Nicaragua. The plane was carrying arms for the Contras. The only survivor, Eugene Hassenfuss admitted to the illegal operation to arm the Contra forces staged out of the Mena airport. Hassenfuss’ capture inspired Oliver North and his secretary at the National Security Council to embark on several days of shredding. The files that survived North’s shredding that were eventually provided to Congress contain hundreds of references to drugs.
Let's take a quick trip back to the 1980s and enjoy this primary source documentation. Note the part where the Attorney General says that the CIA doesn't have to tell anyone at all about narcotics activity.
These classics deserve a post of their own. Right here, full authorization for the CIA to NEVER tell the DEA or anyone else a damn thing about what the boys are doing. What more can I say? (source / zip file)
A little more context on this from Fitts: (part 2 of the series)
Mike Ruppert is a former Los Angeles Police Department narcotics investigator who was run out of LAPD after declining an offer from the CIA to protect their Los Angeles narcotics trafficking operations. After being accosted by Ruppert and the threat of his formidable evidence in support of Webb’s story in a town hall meeting in South Central Los Angeles in November 1996, then Director of the CIA, John Deutsch promised that the CIA Inspector General would investigate the “Dark Alliance” allegations.
This resulted in a two volume report published by the CIA in March and October of 1998 that included disclosure of one of the most important legal documents of the 1980s — a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the CIA dated February 11, 1982 in effect until August 1995.[8] At the time it was created, William French Smith was the U.S. Attorney General and William Casey, former Wall Street law partner and Chairman of the SEC was Director of the CIA. Casey, like Douglas Dillon, had worked for Office of Strategic Services (OSS) founder Bill Donovan and was a former head of the Export-Import Bank. Casey was also a friend of George Schultz. Bechtel looked to the Export-Import Bank to provide the government guarantees that financed billions of big construction contracts worldwide. Casey recruited Stanley Sporkin, former head of SEC Enforcement, to serve as general counsel of the CIA. When Schultz joined the Reagan Administration as Secretary of State, such linkages helped to create some of the personal intimacy between money worlds and national security that make events such as those which occurred during the Iran Contra period possible.
No history of the 1980s is complete without an understanding of the lawyers and legal mechanisms used to legitimize drug dealing and money laundering under the protection of National Security law. Through the MOU, the DOJ relieved the CIA of any legal obligation to report information of drug trafficking and drug law violations with respect to CIA agents, assets, non-staff employees and contractors.[8] Presumably, this included the corporate contractors who, by executive order, were now allowed to handle sensitive intelligence and national security outsourcing.
With the DOJ-CIA Memorandum of Understanding, in effect from 1982 until rescinded in August 1995, a crack cocaine epidemic ravaged the poorer communities of America and disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of poor people into prison who, now classified as felons, were safely off of the voting roles. Meantime, the U.S. financial system gorged on what had grown to an estimated $500 billion-$1 trillion a year of money laundering by the end of the 1990s. Not surprisingly, the rich got richer as corporate power and the concentration of investment capital skyrocketed on the rich margins of state sanctioned criminal enterprise.
These guys were ready to party. To be continued....
We live in a Freemason country, but good George didn't trust those damn Illuminati
In honor of the Da Vinci Code opening today, there were about seven documentaries about the Illuminati, Da Vinci, the Templars and the Holy Grail running on PBS, the History Channel, Discovery &tc. last night. So I was treated to several concurrent exposes of the eye on the dollar bill, DC's inverse pentagram, mysterious relics and apocryphal bloodlines. By the end I had severe paranoia fatigue. But one 'fact' offered by the various weird authors and such caught my attention: the apparent seriousness with which the Illuminati was treated during the revolution, as well as how the PBS documentary seemed to indicate that America's basic political structure, including its religious tolerance, were heavily influenced by Freemasonry. Perhaps, even, in the 13 colonies, Masonic lodges were one of the only broad civic denominators, which seems bizarre today, but seems to have been true to a great extent. In a weird sense, Freemason ideals projected out of the organization to form the basis for our government, an odd connection I'd pretty much never thought about.
This has to be one of the strangest things I have run across in a long time (click to enlarge): located here at the Library of Congress site:
The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799. John C. Fitzpatrick, Editor.
[Note 7: Of Fredericktown (now Frederick), Md.]
Mount Vernon, September 25, 1798.
Sir: Many apologies are due to you, for my not acknowledging the receipt of your obliging favour of the 22d. Ulto, and for not thanking you, at an earlier period, for the Book [8] you had the goodness to send me.
[Note 8: Proofs of a Conspiracy &c, by John Robison.]
I have heard much of the nefarious, and dangerous plan, and doctrines of the Illuminati, but never saw the Book until you were pleased to send it to me.[9] The same causes which have prevented my acknowledging the receipt of your letter have prevented my reading the Book, hitherto; namely, the multiplicity of matters which pressed upon me before, and the debilitated state in which I was left after, a severe fever had been removed. And which allows me to add little more now, than thanks for your kind wishes and favourable sentiments, except to correct an error you have run into, of my Presiding over the English lodges in this Country. The fact is, I preside over none, nor have I been in one more than once or twice, within the last thirty years. I believe notwithstanding, that none of the Lodges in this Country are contaminated with the principles ascribed to the Society of the Illuminati. With respect I am &c.
[Note 9: In a letter from Snyder (Aug. 22, 1798, which is in the Washington Papers), it is stated that this book "gives a full Account of a Society of Free-Masons, that distinguishes itself by the Name of 'Illuminati,' whose Plan is to overturn all Government and all Religion, even natural."]
This painting is at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial: "George Washington Laying the Cornerstone of the National Capitol." Note his gear:
The following was a Mason knickknack card based on the same Masonic apron Washington was said to wear at the Capitol cornerstone-laying, and apparently this is the apron's design, according to an official Masonic site: (I'll fix these links later, sorry)
This excerpt of a different painting was here:
I guess, then, that today's George is in good company.
Naturally when you go spelunking for such material as this, it takes about two links to get waist-deep in weird ass esoteric shit, strange anti-semitic tracts and New World Order dancing aliens. That's the internet for you. I'll post the good, the bad and the ugly later. But for now, isn't a Washington letter about the Illuminati sweet? And why not a second one?
The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799. John C. Fitzpatrick, Editor.
Mount Vernon, October 24, 1798.
Revd Sir: I have your favor of the 17th. instant before me; and my only motive to trouble you with the receipt of this letter, is to explain, and correct a mistake which I perceive the hurry in which I am obliged, often, to write letters, have led you into.
It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am.
The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of seperation). That Individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States, may have had these objects; and actually had a seperation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned.
My occupations are such, that but little leisure is allowed me to read News Papers, or Books of any kind; the reading of letters, and preparing answers, absorb much of my time. With respect, etc.
Now that's a funny spin on American history for your weekend.
The Flaming Lips - The Gash: (The Soft Bulletin - 1999)
Is that gash in your leg
Really why you have stopped?
‘Cause I’ve noticed all the others
Though they’re gashed, they’re still going
‘Cause I feel like the real reason
That you’re quitting, that you’re admitting
That you’ve lost all the will to battle on
Will the fight for our sanity
Be the fight of our lives?
Now that we’ve lost all the reasons
That we thought that we had
Still the battle that we’re in
Rages on till the end
With explosions, wounds are open
Sights and smells, eyes and noses
But the thought that went unspoken
Was understanding that you’re broken
Still the last volunteer battles on
Battles on
Battles on
I was so impressed with Wednesday's South Park episode and how it got rid of Isaac Hayes' character, while at the same time nailing Scientology for its founder's pedophiliac appetites. The solution to a libel suit was Super Adventure Club - and to make it crystal clear they put "This is what Super Adventure Club actually believes" during a brief explanation of its founding myth, going around the world and sodomizing children, which makes you immortal because of invisible spirit particles in the children. And something about an alien overlord.
You bastards. It wasn't Chef, it was that fruity little club that brainwashed him. Here are video clips of key scenes on rooftopreport.com, which appears to be some chick celebrity gossip site. Chef's death in Quicktime.
There is a whole internet storm around this, as some people want to boycott Mission Impossible 3 unless Tom Cruise quits pressuring Viacom/Paramount/Comedy Central not to rerun the original South Park Scientology episode.
Here's the king Fruit Bat himself, appearing in his only Outsider-conducted interview in 1968. From XenuTV.com: The World in Action: The Shrinking World of L. Ron Hubbard. Download the WMV here, or see it recut as "As Mad as the Madman" (5 minutes).
Note the little Star-wreath hat logo. That is the Sea Org logo (the ad is on clambake.org). "It is possibly a bit above your reality to say that we intend to salvage this sector. No one has been able to do it for 75 million years. We are the first." According to Xenu.net:
In the Advanced Orgs in Edinburgh and Los Angeles, staff were ordered to wear all-white uniforms, with silver boots, to mimic the Galactic Patrol of seventy-five million years before. According to Hubbard's Flag Order 652, mankind would accept regulation from that group which had last betrayed it.
The Sea Org order 652 has the memorable quote: "We are faced with a society in which governments aren't governing, SPs are fighting imaginary Martians, and a planet whose inhabitants must have an engram to run out on the 4th Dynamic." Funny, that's what I said to my roommate yesterday.
If you want to see the original South Park Scientology episode online, you might still be able to here. And make sure you read this amazing Rolling Stone article. And a Daily Show segment.
WaPo: 'South Park' Responds: Chef's Goose Is Cooked. BBC: South Park gets revenge on Chef.
Randomness: Mario was a Communist. You can't deny he raised the Red Star. How did we miss this?
Technorati Tags: L Ron Hubbard, Scientology, Sea Org, South park, Xenu
Batch O Goodies: Small victory for the First Amendment. And bongs.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An Alaska high school violated a student's free speech rights by suspending him after he unfurled a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" across the street from the school, a federal court ruled on Friday.
Joseph Frederick, a student at Juneau-Douglas High School in Alaska, displayed the banner -- which refers to smoking marijuana -- in January 2002 to try to get on television as the Olympic torch relay was passing the school. Friday's ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a decision by a federal court in Alaska that backed Frederick's suspension and said his rights were not violated. "Public schools are instrumentalities of government, and government is not entitled to suppress speech that undermines whatever missions it defines for itself," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote in the court's opinion. The court also cleared the way for Frederick to seek damages, saying Morse was aware of relevant case law and should have known her actions violated his rights.
Joe Fuckin Lieberman spends some quality time with Rush Limbaugh at a 50th anniversary party for National Review. Nuke him and support Democratic challenger Ned Lamont in the primaries.
Russ Feingold is on point these days, and CNN sucks in their coverage of the censure thing. What else is new?
Guardian: US postwar Iraq strategy a mess, Blair was told. In pretty blunt language, the British staff was honest about so much of the bad stuff, so long ago.
Israel is the New Athens: Time to gank some land already: Guardian: Israel sets four year deadline to draw final borders:
Mr Olmert, who is strongly favoured to win a general election in three weeks, told the Jerusalem Post that by 2010 he intended to "get to Israel's permanent borders, whereby we will completely separate from the majority of the Palestinian population and preserve a large and stable Jewish majority in Israel".
He did not specify the route of the new frontier, which he said would be decided after an "internal dialogue inside Israel" and consultations with Israel's foreign allies. But he repeated his intention to annex the main settlement blocks in the West Bank and retain control of the Jordan river area "as a security border", resulting in a Palestinian state entirely surrounded by territory under Israeli control.
The plan outlined by Mr Olmert would require the removal of about 60,000 Israelis from settlements deeper inside the West Bank but leave about 350,000 in the main blocks and East Jerusalem.
As they used to say in the Greek times, "Take it, bitch." The Thrasymachus principle of political power. Things haven't changed much since 431 BC: "History of the Peloponnesian War" by Thucydides: Chapter XVII: Sixteenth year of the war: The Melian Conference (aka The Melian Dialogue):
The Melians are a colony of Lacedaemon that would not submit to the Athenians like the other islanders, and at first remained neutral and took no part in the struggle, but afterwards upon the Athenians using violence and plundering their territory, assumed an attitude of open hostility. [Athenian generals] Cleomedes and Tisias, encamping in their territory with the above armament, before doing any harm to their land, sent envoys to negotiate. The Athenian envoys spoke as follows:
.....Athenians: For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences - either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us - and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
....Athenians: When you speak of the favour of the gods, we may as fairly hope for that as yourselves; neither our pretensions nor our conduct being in any way contrary to what men believe of the gods, or practise among themselves. Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist for ever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do. Thus, as far as the gods are concerned, we have no fear and no reason to fear that we shall be at a disadvantage.
Thucydides: Summer was now over. ...the Melians again took another part of the Athenian lines which were but feebly garrisoned. Reinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under the command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the siege was now pressed vigorously; and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists and inhabited the place themselves.
Old boss, same as the new boss. Thanks, Leo Strauss. Power => Morality.
Dubai deal and racism: Raimondo: Dubai and Demagoguery. Juan Cole basically notes that, well, if you spend five years whipping up racist nationalism, it can sort of spill over in ways you don't expect. Not that it's happened before. The Big Lie eventually catches up with you. There's more good stuff in this one about Islamic theology & how it relates to Christians... in other words, the backstory that the 'hatemongers' never ever talk about.
The hatemongers are well known. Rupert Murdoch's Fox Cable News, Rush Limbaugh's radio program and its many clones, telebimbos like Ann Coulter, Evangelical leaders like Franklin Graham, Congressmen like Tom Tancredo, and a slew of far rightwing Zionists who would vote for Netanyahu (or Kach) if they lived in Israel-- Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Michael Rubin, David Horowitz, etc., etc. And finally, there are many Muslims who have an interest in whipping up anti-Islamic feeling. Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress helped maneuver the US into a war against Iraq with lies about a Saddam-al-Qaeda connection and illusory WMD. The dissident Islamic Marxist group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is now placing equally false stories about Iran in the Western press and retailing them to Congress and the Pentagon.
More goodies coming. I had to get the Melian thing in though.
Ironically enough, earlier today I was playing Call of Duty, a WWII first-person shooter game which takes you through a few classic parts of the war, from the perspective of a Brit and a Soviet soldier. I just got to the Stalingrad levels, full of fog, rubble and snipers. Good stuff. And I just got some returned spam, as some Russian is forging "thwart.net" emails to other Russians. But it looks like a hell of a deal!
I have used the Dashboard translator to illuminate some of what it means. The Russian advertising industry is probably baroque and sinister in really amusing ways.
Внимание! ДО 31 МАРТА КУРС ДОЛЛАРА $ 1 = 3 РУБля!!!
Attention! UNTIL 31 MARCH THE EXCHANGE VALUE OF DOLLAR I 1 = 3 RUBLES!!!
Рекламно Агентство «RBA MEDIA» проводит распродажу собственных рекламных площадей и предлагает Вам организовать эффективную рекламную кампанию, а именно – разместить рекламу в издания на уникальных условиях:
Advertising agency "RBA MEDIA" is conducted the sale of its own advertising areas and proposes to you it organized effective advertising operating period, namely - it placed advertisement into the publications on the unique conditions:
ВАША РЕКЛАМНАЯ КАМПАНИЯ ПО ЦЕНЕ $ 1 = 3 РУБЛЯ!
YOUR ADVERTISING OPERATING PERIOD ON THE PRICE I 1 = 3 RUBLES!
Данный курс действует на размещение рекламы любого объема в любых номерах изданий 2006 года на страницах журналов, участвующих в акции при оплате не менее 3-х публикаций до 31.03.06 г. Кроме того, каждый рекламодатель данной акции получает бесплатную полугодовую подписку на издание с собственной рекламой.
This course acts on the arrangement of the advertisement of any capacity in any numbers of the publications 2006 on the pages of the periodicals, which participate in the action with the payment not less 3rd publications to 31.03.06 g. furthermore, each sponsor of this action is obtained free half year subscription to the publication with his own advertisement.
Звоните: 8-909-630-3868
и Вы получите уникальную рекламу кампанию за минимальные деньги!
Стоимость рекламы в журналах, участвующих в данной акции:
and you will receive unique advertisement operating period for the minimum money!
Cost of advertisement in the periodicals, which participate in this:
[And there are several items like this:]
Журнал «АВТО - ОБОЗРЕНИЕ»
Официальная стоимость рекламы:
1/16 полосы - $ 600
Стоимость рекламы во время акции:
1/16 полоса - 1.800 руб.
Periodical "IS AUTO- - REVIEW" the official cost of the advertisement:
1/16 strips - i 600 cost of advertisement during the action: 1/16
strip - 1.800 rub.
I have to say that Russian is probably the coolest looking language.
At this very moment, Hunter Thompson's ashes may be arcing through the air, settling back down all over the place. A fitting end to the legend. There were Golden Tickets to the ceremony hidden in Gonzo Imperial Porter bottles which you can order from Flying Dog brewery over the Internet. "Photographer tangles with Thompson's neighbor for shot of cannon". A news roundup via the Great Thompson Hunt. Hunter Thompson Widow Tells AP of Send-Off. FAA to keep tight grip on airspace at Hunter Thompson’s memorial (it is near the airport).
I've got nothing particular to say, save a quote (Songs of the Doomed, p. 294)
Feeling crazy has never really worried me. It is an occupational hazard and some days I even get paid for it--but there are some things that even crazy people can't get away with, and this idea of turning around and driving back to Sacramento to pick up Jilly's birth certificate seemed to be one of them.
"Don't worry about him," she said. "He's having dinner with some tax lobbyists tonight. I'll just run in and get a little suitcase. It won't take two minutes."
I shrugged and turned around. What the hell? I thought. Buy the ticket, take the ride. There was madness in either direction. And besides, I was beginning to like the girl.
She was a dangerous dingbat with a very pure dedication to the Love and Adventure ethic--but I recognized a warrior when I met one, and on the way down the mountain I knew what Clyde must have felt like when he met Bonnie.
Fare thee well, Doctor of Journalism. Selah.
Gonzo in Space: Hunter S. Thompson to Go Out With a Bang on Saturday
"We have never had a request such as this one in our company's history," Marcy Zambelli, chief executive officer of Zambelli Fireworks, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gaztte this week. "But we respect the request of the family and have actually custom engineered an aerial shell specifically designed to carry out his final wish."
Richard Gilmore, left, and Tom Bennie with Specialized Protective Services of Aspen, stand guard at the entrance to Hunter S. Thompson's Owl Farm in Woody Creek, Colo., on Friday, Aug. 19, 2005, where preparations are underway for Saturday's memorials service for Thompson. The memorial pictured in the background will be unveiled Saturday night and Thompson's ashes will be distributed by a fireworks projectile. As many as 250 family members and friends are expected to attend the by invitation only ceremony. Thompson shot himself to death six months ago on Feb. 20 at age 67. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
Hunter S. Thompson's counselor By D.A. Blyler | RAW STORY CONTRIBUTOR
The Scriptures relevance for Thompson flooded back as I stared at The Proud Highway and Bible in the bottom of the box. It reminded me of the mystery surrounding Thompson’s brief suicide note. Before shooting himself with a revolver, he had typed the single word “Counselor” in the center of a blank page. To date, fellow journalists and friends of Thompson have expressed confusion as to what the word might signify, comparing it to the mysterious “Rosebud” of Citizen Kane. And that’s when it hit me. I picked up the Bible and quickly scanned the Gospel of John. There it was in the 14th chapter:
“16 And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor*, to be with you for ever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.”
It isn’t surprising that journalists didn’t pick up on this connection with Thompson’s goodbye in the days following his death. While the Bible has wielded greater influence on the history of American Letters than any other work, we currently live in an age where any mention of the Bible immediately conjures up images of right-wing nut-cases, homophobic TV evangelists, and door-knocking Adventists in bad suits. Fewer and fewer educated people (including Christians) read the Bible anymore. But Thompson wasn’t a product of this age. He was of that rapidly dwindling generation of writers who saw the majesty of the Bible as both a work of literature and a looking-glass into the human condition.
Thompson surely would have felt drawn to the Gospel of John, the most lyrical and mystical of the four Gospels. It’s there that we find the pronouncement: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It is a decree that has resonated with writers from Twain to Whitman to Fitzgerald to Miller—a revelation that words are transcendent, that a writer’s vocation is more than just a job. It should be a calling, wherein the “Spirit of truth” (Counselor) is followed unfailingly. No mean trick.
For following your Counselor often means discovering things that aren’t fit for polite company. It’s never pleasant to find evil growing among the peonies. Or in the hearts of your elected officials. Better to be “vaguely happy” than uncomfortable. Thompson, though, never fell for that devil’s lie. He knew that even though the truth often cuts like a razor, it also serves as a “Comforter*” when the jackals begin circling. Because as Thompson recognized, the jackals don’t really give a damn whether you speak the truth or not. They are coming after us all one day. But facing the bastards down is a whole lot easier when you’ve got the truth by your side.
Hunter Thompson Ashes Set to Blast Off
By ROBERT WELLER
The Associated Press
Saturday, August 20, 2005; 8:26 PM
WOODY CREEK, Colo. -- Iconoclastic journalist Hunter S. Thompson would have loved the 153-foot tower built to blast his ashes into the sky, said one of his many friends and admirers gathered for an unsolemn farewell.
"It's a beautiful structure. Of course, he would not have been able to resist putting a few holes into it," said Michael Cleverly, referring to his former neighbor's love of shooting guns. "But it weighs several tons, so it could handle a few holes."
The counterculture author killed himself six months ago at his home near Aspen. His ashes, intermingled with fireworks, were to be fired out of the tower Saturday evening in front of a star-studded crowd at his Owl Farm compound.
"He loved explosions," his wife, Anita Thompson, explained during the planning of the fireworks sendoff.
The tower _ intentionally built just taller than the Statue of Liberty _ was erected in a field between Thompson's home and a tree-covered canyon wall. It was shrouded in tarpaulins for days, but his widow, Anita, said it was modeled after Thompson's Gonzo logo: a clenched fist, made symmetrical with two thumbs, rising from the hilt of a dagger.
The memorial was expected to be a party, with plenty of alcohol, reminiscences, readings from Thompson's works and performances by both Lyle Lovett and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
About 250 people were invited, including Thompson's longtime illustrator, Ralph Steadman, and actors Sean Penn and Johnny Depp, close friends of the writer. Depp portrayed Thompson in the 1998 movie version of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream," perhaps the writer's most well-known work.
Anita Thompson said Depp funded much of the celebration.
"We had talked a couple of times about his last wishes to be shot out of a cannon of his own design," Depp told The Associated Press last month. "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out."
Only after the last forest has been cut down, and perhaps the great day will come when a people, distinguished by wars and victories and by the highest development of a military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifices for these things, will exclaim of its own free will, “We break the sword,” and will smash its entire military establishment down to its lowest foundations.
Rendering oneself unarmed when one has been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling—that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind; whereas the so-called armed peace, as it now exists in all countries, is the absence of peace of mind. One trusts neither oneself nor one's neighbor and, half from hatred, half from fear, does not lay down arms. Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared- this must some day become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth. . .
-Nietzsche
Thursday was a very interesting day. I went to the Capitol to try to do some research about my grandfather, Daniel S. Feidt Sr., who once served in the Minnesota legislature. As it turned out, there was a GLBT rally that afternoon, with at least a few hundred gays, lesbians and their heterosupporters around on the Capitol lawn.
For older state archives I was directed to the Minnesota Historical Society across the freeway, where their top-notch library has all sorts of state resources going back before 1900.
I found my grandfather's sole published contribution to the state's library: a curious 15-page pamphlet entitled "Minnesota's Non-Party Legislature," a 1957 reflection on why he, as a serving senator, loved the non-partisan system. The piece rails against the party machines common in so many states, and he makes the compelling argument that an independent legislature, free of individuals 'subservient' to political parties, provides more sound, economical and progressive administration of the state.
It's a paean to a totally lost form of politics in America, written straight from its heart. This piece helped explain to me why I so distrust the arbitrary power of political parties and their cynical manipulations. Feidt's potshots at the political machines of the day show me how right it always is to whack at the bastards...
It's a rare sort of freedom he and his colleagues had: no national party shadowing them, no executive bureaux, no matrix of special interests to kowtow to. This piece forces us to ask: what the hell do political parties really do for us, anyway? As Minnesota swiftly becomes a scorched-earth partisan battleground, we could all use some more independent wisdom.
Minnesota's Non-Party Legislature
by Senator Daniel S. Feidt
Minneapolis, MN
April, 1957
FORWARD
The states of Minnesota and Nebraska have the unique distinction of electing their legislators without a designation of party affiliation of the candidate on the ballot. The Minnesota Legislature became non-party by a law enacted in 1913 and Nebraska by a constitutional change in the 1930's.
The purpose of this writing is to consider, in summary form,
(1) the historical background of the Minnesota law,
(2) the present system of electing public officials in Minnesota,
(3) the validity of arguments against the non-party elective system,
(4) the record of the Minnesota Legislature since 1913, and
(5) to evaluate the personnel, functioning and legislative results of the Minnesota system in comparison with her sister states who elect legislators on a party basis.
The author has been a member of the Minnesota Legislature for twenty-two years [ultimately twenty-six] which has included service in both its House and Senate.
GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE FIRST CONGRESS WERE ELECTED NON-PARTISAN
The federal constitution and the constitutions of the original thirteen states were drafted and adopted under the belief that these governments would function without political parties. George Washington and members of the first Congress were elected on a non-party basis, but by the close of Washington's second term as president, political parties were developing and thereafter for a period of about one hundred years the phenomenon of the American political scene was the strengthening of political party controls at all levels from the ward and township to the national capitol. By the early 1900's it was not the elected official who was making independent decisions in his representative capacity for the voters as had been intended by the founding fathers, but rather these decisions on public questions were frequently made by subservient public officials under party dictation.
WITH POLITICAL PARTIES CAME POLITICAL SCANDALS
Political scandals followed the rise to power of the political party in much the same way that scandals followed the rise to power of the unscrupulous labor boss. Domineering, graft-corrupted political machines of both parties, of which Tammany Hall in New York and Boyse Penrose in Pennsylvania were perhaps the most notorious. The party boss became an accepted figure in the American political arena. The party boss selected judges, dictated judicial decisions, determined entire legislative programs, and it is common knowledge that even presidents became subservient to party domination.
In the 1890's and by the early 1900's it was notorious that judgeships, postmasterships, seats in state legislature and even in Congress itself were being sold by political racketeers to the highest bidder. It was the heyday of the party boss and political racketeer.
POLITICAL BOSSISM TODAY
Despite the efforts of able men in many states opposing party bossism, we have seen much of it remain. Typical examples are Boss Crump of Tennessee, Boss Hague of New Jersey, Boss Pendergast of Missouri, Tammany Hall in New York, the Vare machine in Philadelphia and the Kelly-Nash machine in Illinois. Only in a state where party domination of candidates to the state legislature exists can party bosses gain control of political machines to the exclusion of the general public of a state.
REFORM LEADERS
By the early 1900's the great political reform movement of American History began to take shape. The reform leaders who today are best remembered are Senator Robert O. LaFollette of Wisconsin; President Theodore Roosevelt and somewhat later, William Allen White of Kansas.
There were two principal objectives to these reforms. The one was trust-busting, which doesn't concern this article, and the second was the breaking of the corrupting grip of party domination on government.
POLITICAL REFORMATION
Political reformation in other states has been the most successful as it has attacked party domination over the judiciary and to a lesser extent at the municipal and county levels. Many states have placed the election of these officials on a non-party basis; however, many states have not.
THE HISTORIC 1913 LEGISLATIVE SESSION
With the possible exception of Nebraska, political reform in Minnesota was carried further than in any other state. Minnesota's 1913 session was the most historic ever held. It enacted more laws of a fundamental nature than any other session during our one hundred year history. Included were the last reapportionment bill and our first Presidential Primary Law. No bill enacted by it, however, had greater political significance to Minnesotans than its Chapter 389 that gave Minnesota the distinction of being the first state to elect its legislature on a non-party basis.
The background of Chapter 389 of the 1913 session is interesting. It was at a special session called in 1912 that the election of the following was changed from party to non-party. There were: The Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, District Court Judges, Probate Court Judges, Municipal Court Judges, and most significantly all county officers of all counties, and all municipal officers in cities of the first class.
It has been incorrectly said that during the 1913 session there was before the legislature a bill to place the judiciary on a non-party basis and that in an effort to defeat that bill, the election of legislators on a non-party basis was added by the Senate to a House bill, in the belief that the House would never re-pass such a bill. The story goes that support for the judiciary bill as thus amended came from legislators who did not believe in the principle of a non-party legislature with the result that passage of this art [sic] was a kind of legislative mistake.
OUR NON-PARTY LEGISLATURE WAS NO MISTAKE
An examination of the record, however, clearly establishes that the judiciary had already been placed on a non-party basis by the special session of 1912 and that the 1913 act that gave Minnesota our non-party legislature must necessarily have been drafted, considered, voted on, and signed by the Governor on its merits completely independent of the question of whether the judiciary should or should not be elected on a party basis.
WHO ARE ELECTED ON A PARTY TICKET IN MINNESOTA?
To what extent is Minnesota now committed to the non-party system of electing its public officials? What officials and how many are elected on a party basis and what officials and how many are not?
The following are elected on a party designated basis. They are the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State and State Treasurer and State Auditor, together with the three members of the Railroad and Warehouse Commission. Thus, Minnesota elects exactly nine of its public officials on a party basis.
The number of elective officials in Minnesota is difficult to determine, but the following figures have been supplied by the Information Service of the League of Minnesota Municipalities:
Kind of Unit Total Approximate Number of Elected Officials:
Counties 1,400
Towns 20,295
School Districts 12,300
Cities 1,075
Villages 7,845
District Court Judges 57
Legislators 198
===
Total 43,170
Minnesota is presently committed to the non-party system of election as against the party system by the astonishing ratio of approximately 43,170 to 9.
THE MINNESOTAN IS PROUD OF HIS POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE
The average Minnesotan is proud of his political independence, proud of his independence to vote for the man irrespective of party. He is accustomed to vote independently and he wants to continues that independence.
Party leaders through the enactment of this bill [?] will vest themselves with political power by gaining control of the legislature; yet, at the same time neither the Republican party nor the Democrat-Farm Labor party is the dominant party in Minnesota today. The dominant political party in Minnesota is the independent. As the independent votes, so goes elections in Minnesota, and you may be certain that the independent is not in support of this bill to turn control of the legislature over to political parties.
Just why those who advocate placing the legislature on a party basis do not also support the election of all officials on a party-designated ballot is difficult to understand, since their arguments, if valid, apply to all elective offices with the possible exception of the judiciary.
THE FOUR ARGUMENTS FOR PARTY DESIGNATION
Let us axamine [sic] the four reasons that are customarily advanced in favor of placing Minnesota's legislature under party domination. They are:
1. A PARTY DESIGNATED LEGISLATURE WILL PROMOTE AND STRENGTHEN POLITICAL PARTIES.
2. A LEGISLATOR SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE TO A POLITICAL PARTY FOR HIS PUBLIC ACTS.
3. ELECTIONS ON A NON-PARTY BASIS IS ONLY A POPULARITY CONTEST.
4. CANDIDATES SHOULD BE PLEDGED TO A PARTY PLATFORM AND SHOULD STAND FOR ELECTION ON THAT PLATFORM.
---
1.A PARTY DESIGNATED LEGISLATURE WILL PROMOTE AND STRENGTHEN POLITICAL PARTIES
The purpose of the legislature is not to build political parties. Reduced to simplicity, the function of the legislature is to enact such laws as will fairly and justly treat with state problems; that is, to enact such laws within the framework of the constitution as necessary if we are to enjoy an orderly functioning of the state government and its lesser political subdivisions, and also to levy such taxes and appropriate such amounts of money as are required to adequately perform the primary functions of the State. The legislature has no other purpose or duty. It follows that it is not and should not be the responsibility of any public official or group of public officials such as legislators to build or strengthen political parties.
2. A LEGISLATOR SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE TO A POLITICAL PARTY FOR HIS PUBLIC ACTS
It is argued that a person elected to public office should be accountable for his public acts to a political party, and that one of the beneficial results that will flow from a party designated legislature will be what is called party discipline.
A writer in comparing politics in Minnesota with politics in Pennsylvania, a party dominated state, recently wrote as follows:
----
"One must realize that Pennsylvania is a disciplined, party organization state where politics operate on a basis startling to Minnesotans, used to fiercely independent political behavior.
Pennsylvania is ruled by county leaders. . . party chieftains who win power by political brains and who remain in power by an ingenious system of rewards and penalties for their supporters and opponents.
Under their control are disciplined party organizations which can produce votes in massive quantities, like turning a spigot on and off. For all practical purposes, the select party candidates, establish governmental policy, fix tax rates and reward or penalize their followers.
They're a tough, intensely practical crew."
----
It is understandable why party leaders desire to increase their power by gaining control of the Minnesota legislature, but the view of the independent voter is different, he does not want his legislator, alderman or school board member, to be subject to party responsibility. He does not want a political climate to develop where there might be brought back to Minnesota's scene the paid political hack, the ward healer or the ward boss. The independent wants Minnesota to remain as it is -- the cleanest political state in the nation and the independent wants his public official, be he legislator or alderman, to be responsible to the voters not to some party boss.
3. ELECTIONS ON A NON-PARTY BASIS IS ONLY A POPULARITY CONTEST
If this argument is valid as applied to the election of legislators, then it is also valid as applied to election of every one of the 43,000 public officials elected on a non-party basis in Minnesota today. But how sound is this popularity contest argument? Why should not the voters have the right of voting for the man they want rather than a hand-picked candidate who has, through some means or another, honorable or otherwise, secured the favor of the party boss? Most candidates stand for re-election and when they do, it is not a popularity contest. The candidate for re-election puts his every public act at issue at each such election. If he has not been responsive to the will of the electorate, he is not returned to office.
4. CANDIDATES SHOULD BE PLEDGED TO A PARTY PLATFORM AND STAND FOR ELECTION ON THAT PLATFORM
An examination of the platforms of political parties leads to the conclusion that platforms are drafted not necessarily in the interest of the people but rather they are designed for the purpose of attracting votes. The two devices most frequently used in the writing of party platforms are to grant concessions to every special interest group the party leaders believe will be of significance in the voting and the second is to garnish it with platitudes and generalities such as being for the old people, the youth, the farmer and the working man. What useful purpose would be served if legislators were to be pledged to such broad generalities or to the sops offered the spcial [sic] interest groups? Better legislation will inevitably result if legislators arrive to take up their duties at the Capital unpledged to any person or any issue, except pledged to honestly, fairly and to the best of their abilities represent their constituents and the people of the State. That they take up their duties with an inquiring mind determined to make no decision until they have had an opportunity of hearing in the committees and on the floor of the House and Senate all views on each controversial issue.
PARTY LEADERS IN MINNESOTA TODAY
No discussion of this subject would be complete without mention of political parties as the operate in Minnesota today. Present leadership of both the Republican and Democratic-Farmer-Labor parties is obviously drawn from our most able and public spirited citizens. They function in the manner you would expect from conscientious responsible leaders but without paid political hangers-on and all the rest of the tawdry, clap trap that has disgraced the name of politics in so many of the states that have party designated legislatures.
THE MINNESOTA LEGISLATURE HAS BEEN PROGRESSIVE AND LIBERAL
The laws enacted, the appropriations made and the record of our non-party legislature over the past forty-four years have been such that every citizen of our State can take pride in.
Scores of examples could be cited to establish the fact that during the forty odd years Minnesota has operated on a non-party basis, it has been a leader in progressive and liberal legislation. In the interest of brevity, I wlll [sic] cite only a few examples. It was the independent Minnesota senate that during the depts [sic] of the depression in the early 1930's conceived the idea and then drafted and passed the first state mortgage moratorium law. Later almost every state in the union adopted some form of this humanitarian law which was first produced by our non-party legislature. Another example that can be cited is Minnesota's labor relations law which, although patterned to some extent after Scandinavian laws, actually was an original piece of legislation. This act also has proved itself in operation and has been copied by many states. Other examples of how excellently the non-party legislature functions might well include our mental health program, our fine schools, outstanding University, and our Presidential Primary Law that has had such a profound effect on the national political scene.
WHO IS ELECTED TO THE LEGISLATURE?
One of the unusual results of our non-party system is that it favors the election of the legislature of outstanding citizens without regard for politics. This has been particularly true of elections held in rural areas. Often these candidates from rural areas have distinguished themselves in community service and are elected to the legislature as a reward by the community they have served and there is little or no political significance in their election. They are apt to be persons of proven character, experience and judgment and they make excellent law makers.
EXPERIENCE IN A LEGISLATOR IS AN ASSET
The non-party election of legislators also has had the beneficial result of giving Minnesota a more experienced legislature that her sister states. Non-party legislators are not as vulnerable to defeat on each occasion when voters change the political party in control of the state offices or the national administration. Those who work with legislatures will agree that experience is just as valuable as an asset to a legislator as it is to any other person who receives a responsible assignment in the professions, business or industry.
People who work with several legislatures including Minnesota have frequently said that the caliber of the Minnesota legislators, both in the House and Senate, and including members of the independent and liberal groups, is exceptionally high in comparison with party-dominated states. There is good reason for this. Scores of Minnesota legislators would find no challenge in serving as members of the legislature if their only function was to rubber stamp the decisions of a party boss. They stay with their work as legislators because the decisions they make are theirs alone and not those of some party politician whose only responsibility is to the party rather than to the people. The responsibility of the Minnesota legislator is to his constituents before whom he must stand for re-election.
LOBBYING EASIER IN PARTY LEGISLATURES
Legislative representatives, association executives and lobbiest [sic] who appear for their groups in Minnesota and also party-designated state legislatures say that in working in other legislatures, they have only to convince the majority party leader of their views since it is only he, and not the individual legislator, who makes the decision for all party members.
THE MINNESOTA SYSTEM IS NON-BOSS
This is not true of the Minnesota legislature where every measure is weighed by the individual legislator both in committee and on the floor of the House or Senate. Minnesota has the opposite of the party boss system; it has its own system -- a non-boss system, in which every legislator is free to decide what is in the best interest for his constituents and what is in the best interest of the state on each issue. The Minnesota system, in my judgment, is infinitely more in the interest of the public.
POLITICS IN MINNESOTA IS CLEANER & BETTER
We who have taken an active part in Minnesota legislature have been taking for granted the benefits of the Minnesota non-party system; yet, at the same time we have also been somewhat remiss in failing to adequately explain to those not actively working with the legislature how superior the Minnesota system is in operation. Many persons do not realize that in Minnesota we enjoy cleaner and better politics and, at the same time, give to our people a more economical, effective and responsive government.
Once the consideration of the proposed repeal of the non-party status of the legislature is focused on something other than the repetitious conclusions which we have heard over the years from proponents of the bill, such as "party responsibility" and the other well known arguments, and our people come to understand that the real issue is whether we are determined to retain better government in Minnesota, they not only will stand with us in demanding that we retain our non-party system, but, in my judgment, a movement might well take form whereby other states will be encouraged to adopt the Minnesota system.
EXPERIENCE SHOWS THE MINNESOTA SYSTEM IS BEST
Above all, we who have the experience of actually working under the Minnesota non-party system should be determined that we retain what we know to be in the best interests of good government in Minnesota and determined to resist all efforts, regardless of how well intentioned they may be to turn our legislature over to political party control.
CNN: 'He loved explosions'
Tuesday, April 5, 2005 Posted: 5:28 PM EDT (2128 GMT)
DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- Hunter S. Thompson's ashes will be blasted from a cannon mounted inside a 53-foot-high (16.15 meter-high) sculpture of the journalist's "gonzo fist" emblem, his wife said Tuesday.
The cannon shot, planned sometime in August on the grounds of his Aspen-area home, will fulfill the writer's long-cherished wish.
"It's expensive, but worth every penny," Anita Thompson said. "I'd like to have several explosions. He loved explosions."
Thompson, 67, shot himself in the head on February 20 after a long and flamboyant career that produced such new journalism classics as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and cast his image as a hard-charging, drug-crazed daredevil.
The cannon shot will be part of a larger public celebration of Thompson's life. Some details remain to be worked out, including the exact date, what kind of cannon will be used and the specifics of the gonzo fist, his wife said.
She said the gonzo fist will be mounted on a 100-foot pillar, making the monument 153 feet (46.63 meters) high. It will resemble Thompson's personal symbol, a fist on an upthrust forearm, sometimes with "Gonzo" emblazoned across it.
Anita Thompson has said the monument will be a permanent fixture on the writer's 100-acre property.
Thx to Judge Deason for telling me...
"It's the story of the development of the soul," Miss Portinari was saying at that moment, spreading out the twenty-two trumps or "keys" of that very ancient deck. "We call it a book—the Book of Thoth—and it's the most important book in the world."
George and Joe Malik, each wondering if this was the final explanation or a new put-on leading to a new cycle of deceptions, listened with mingled curiosity and skepticism.
"The order was deliberately reversed," Miss Portinari went on. "Not by the true sages. By the false Illuminati, and by all the other White Brotherhoods and Rosicrucians and Freemasons and whatnot who didn't really understand the truth and therefore wanted to hide the part of it they did understand. They felt themselves threatened; the real sage is never threatened.
"They spoke in symbols and paradoxes, like real sages, but for a different reason. They didn't know what the symbols and paradoxes meant. Instead of following the finger that points to the moon, they sat down and worshipped the finger itself. Instead of following the map, they thought it was the territory and tried to live in it. Instead of reading the menu, they tried to eat it. Dig?
"They had the levels confused. And they tried to confuse any independent searcher by drawing more veils and paradoxes across the path. Finally, in the 1920s, some real left-handed monkey wrenches in one of these mystic lodges recruited Adolph Hitler, and he not only read the book backward, like all of them, but insisted on believing it was the story of the exterior, physical universe."
The Illuminatus Trilogy, p. 715-717
Straight from the inbox:
Will JFK return to rule the world in the last days? Was the brief reign and tragic death of JFK a part of his divine destiny? Did JFK's death fulfill biblical prophecy? Does historical evidence prove that JFK is the 'end-time' beast of Revelation? Join author Gabriel Cola as he explores all of these questions. He will methodically gather the evidence and prove that JFK is the only possible individual that can fulfill prophecies that were written regarding the end-time reign of the antichrist.
"Unmasking the Beast" is available from Armageddon Books at:
http://www.armageddonbooks.com/262cola.html
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt...If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."
--Thomas Jefferson. I found this quote on a picture on SorryEverybody.com, a site (nick linked to below) featuring apologies from ordinary folks to the rest of the world about the election.
I strongly recommend to everyone this article in the Christian Science Monitor on "Mixing Prophecy and Politics," which lays out the concrete connections between the end-of-the-world Christian fundamentalists that support Israel's colonization of the West Bank as a gateway stage to the battle of Armageddon, and their political hooks in the United States.
This whole political-religious framework is also known as 'premillennial dispensationalism,' which means that A) we live with the End Times and 'millennium' in our future and B) God dispenses goodies to good people, that is, he blesses those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel, in part. In other words, an interventionalist God, the type who would, as Jerry Falwell described it, punish the U.S. directly via Sept. 11. The problem with this kind of thinking, as the article makes clear, is that people who are thinking 'eschatologically' sometimes act to make their prophecies self-fulfilling, by financially supporting West Bank settlements, for example. In turn, this kind of garbage could easily incite World War III if clear-thinking politicians don't intercede. But of course this is Bush we are talking about, and he implies all the time that God intended Sept. 11 as some kind of avenging task generator. As an atheist, all this stuff scares the hell out of me, for reasons I hope are obvious. I think about it a great deal.
If you ever wanted to hear what a right-wing peacenik does when he collides with flashy left-wingers reading poetry, read the very amusing latest from Justin Raimondo. He also addressed the Hersh and BBC reports about the Israelis, leading round to his usual thesis that Israel was the only country that really stood to benefit from the war on Iraq.
I will say again that I always take Raimondo with more than a grain of salt, but has he been proven wrong thus far?
In an effort at damage control, the Israel lobby is making a concerted effort to smear whomever states the obvious: a great deal of the "intelligence" used to lie us into war came directly from Tel Aviv and was "stovepiped" into the White House by neocon White House advisors, and that, in retrospect, this war has been to the strategic advantage of one and only one nation on earth: Israel.If "Israel was never near the top of the list" when it comes to motives for this war, then how is it that Tel Aviv turns out to be the chief beneficiary in so many ways? As the Mossad infiltrates Kurdistan, demands recognition from the Iraqi "government," and even sends its skilled torturers to help the American occupiers subjugate and degrade their Arab charges more effectively, the demonstrable evidence that Israel's most loyal supporters led the way to war is not so easily brushed aside.
Again, anyone can understand that war and conquest without and the encroachments of despotism within give each other mutual support; that money and men are habitually taken at pleasure from a people of slaves to bring others beneath the same yoke; and that conversely war furnishes a pretext for exactions of money and another, no less plausible, for keeping large armies constantly on foot, to hold people at awe. In a word, anyone can see that aggressive princes wage war at least as much on theis subjectts as on their enemies, and that the conquering nation is left no better off than the conquered.
--Rousseau
(from New & Old Wars by Mary Kaldor, p. 19)
Alison sent me this weird spam she got:
I am a single serving friend. The continuation of our species matters more than you can imagine. It is the single most important thing we can do. I want you to hit me as hard as you can. I want you to hit me as hard as you.
Suddenly, he disappeared. I'd seen many of the same things I've seen before. He wanted to know more. I didn't have to say: can we change the meeting from 6 to 11? My kids have a music recital and I dont want to miss it for the world.
Don't do that, the cat pointed out. We're going to regret this, my friend said. My job was to apply the formula. Why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is?
This was a place without the internet, without email, without the rush of business meetings and untapped desires. That could well be the answer. But this was a long road, and should I walk down it, I might never come back. What is the answer? What are we going to do tonight? I asked.
YV9ub3JtYW44M0B5YWhvby5jb20=
Sitting around at the library and I found a nice Nietzsche piece, the Twilight of the Idols. It starts with punchy little axioms I liked.
You run ahead? Are you doing it as a shepherd? Or as an exception? A third case would be the fugitive. First question of conscience.
#38
Are you genuine? Or merely an actor? A representative? Or that which is represented? In the end, perhaps you are merely a copy of an actor. Second question of conscience.
#40
Are you one who looks on? Or one who lends a hand? Or one who looks away and walks off? Third question of conscience.
#41
Do you want to walk along? Or walk ahead? Or walk by yourself? One must know what one wants and that one wants. Fourth question of conscience.
#42
Those were steps for me, and I have climbed up over them: to that end I had to pass over them. Yet they thought that I wanted to retire on them.
#43
What does it matter if I remain right. I am much too right. And he who laughs best today will also laugh last.
#44
The formula of my happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal.
This fragment of an old Atmosphere song encapsulates exactly how I felt all through January. In particular, getting "nervous each time my piece passes go" seems a reference to that certain dark January melancholy we get up here.
I open the curtains and listen to the traffic go
But I still get nervous each time my piece passes go
The residue is thick and the memory fails
I still laugh because the path feels a lot like a trail
If I could run through the woods and speed like the light
I'd find the answers to why and be back by tonight
If I could fly through the fog and look down at this rock
I'd figure out how to keep hell off my block
Atmosphere, The River (Sad Clown Bad Dub 2/7)
"I urge everyone to join in and not leave the field of values, defintions, and cultures uncontested. They are certainly not the property of a few Washington offiicials, any more than they are the responsibility of a few Middle Eastern rulers. There is a common field of human undertaking being created and recreated, and no amount of imperial bluster can ever conceal or negate that fact." Al Ahram, August 30, 2003.
From the Edward Said archive.
This is a bit of older news, but I still think it's worth looking at. 2001 Nobel Prize winner, econ professor George Akerlof, has become somewhat politicized by the outrages he sees in the Bush administration. He spoke out against Bush's terribly constructed tax cuts and the general depravity of the president's policies:
The government is not really telling the truth to the American people. Past administrations from the time of Alexander Hamilton have on the average run responsible budgetary policies. What we have here is a form of looting...Future generations and even people in ten years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we're going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security. So the money that is going overwhelmingly to the wealthy is going to be paid by cutting services for the elderly...
I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign and economic but also in social and environmental policy. This is not normal government policy. Now is the time for people to engage in civil disobedience.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of what kind?
Akerlof: I don't know yet. But I think it's time to protest - as much as possible.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've mentioned the term civil disobedience a minute ago. That term was made popular by the author Henry D. Thoreau, who actually advised people not to pay taxes as a means of resistance. You wouldn't call for that, would you?
Akerlof: No. I think the one thing we should do is pay our taxes. Otherwise, it'll only make matters worse.
