At LSU, 1984-5

I immodestly think this may be the best photographic record ever made of my physiognomy. It accompanied a short bio in the LSU Gumbo yearbook in 1985, the year I got the Masters in Journalism (I was 38.). I was teaching writing...I know, right?

In that period, I had a teaching assistantship in the J'School, and I had the chance to possibly have prevented Rod Dreher from continuing his 'journalistic' efforts, as he was in two classes I taught. I've regretted every time I've come across his name in print that he presented me no opportunity for further discouragement.

(Yes, I was wearing a choker. The jacket was salmon-colored denim. The hat was tan, the band was fawn. I had that hat a long time. I was probably wearing jeans and boots.

PingPong in Dallas

 

A "Christmas Story," from an Old Man's Brain

Actually, it was pre-New Year's, maybe Dec. 30, '64; I was in the USAF, in Wichita Falls. A girl I'd met the previous summer, while lifeguarding at La Fonda's little pool, had indicated that, if I showed up in Dallas for New Year's, I'd be welcomed. I did. I wasn't, whence endeth the tale.

It begins a little earlier.

Being a very junior airman (E-2, one stripe), I had very little money, so I decided to hitchhike to Dallas. Outside the gate, I met up with another guy from my flight. As I recall, his name was Danny, and he was from Appalachia somewhere, spoke with an almost incomprehensible drawl and hadn't had "low quarter" shoes before enlisting in the USAF which, all unbeknownst to me, he was in the process of deserting, that cold, December night outside Shepard AFB.

We lucked out and caught a ride pretty quickly, a balding, semi-portly, middle-aged fellow in a new Mustang who was also going down to Dallas. We tossed our AWOL bags in the trunk and departed. We all traded names; the driver's was Guy.

We were all smoking cigarettes as we rode through the wintry, central Texas night with the windows cracked.

After about half-an-hour, the driver asked we'd ever heard of marijuana. We both said we'd heard of it but hadn't ever had any. He asked if we'd like to try it and both of us said yes, naturally. So he reached two, thin, hand-rolled 'cigarettes' from his shirt pocket and handed one to Danny and one to me and said, "Light up, but not like a Camel. You take a drag like a regular smoke, but hold it in your lungs as long as you can and exhale slowly."

I got the hang of it right away, and the ride unfolded merrily. Guy had a couple of six-packs of Lone Star, and we were all laughing and scratching all the way down to Big D. When we could see the lights, Guy asked us if we had a place to stay, and neither Danny nor I did. But as Danny was deserting, which he had revealed once we left Wichita Falls, he wanted to keep moving.

I guess it was about midnight, so I accepted the offer, inasmuch as I thought I'd have more than adequate accommodations the next night and several, before I had to return to duty. We drove somewhere in the city, near downtown, I think. It was a large, tall, apartment building. We entered the garage underneath, took an elevator to a high floor, where I entered a very large room full of art and antiques.

Guy asked what I drank, I said Scotch. He asked if I wanted another joint, and I accepted. He inquired about my home and family, asked about my life pre-USAF, why I was in Dallas, did I have plans.

At the time I thought I did and I said so. He seemed disappointed. But then he asked me if I needed money, and I assented, "yes I did." So, he said. he'd give me $200 if I would "help" him.

By this time, it was about 4AM. He told me what he wanted me to do. It was weird: He told me he was going to get undressed and get into his walk-in shower, turn the water on and start to masturbate, and he'd pay me $200 to stand outside the shower in my jockey shorts and hurl pingpong balls at him as hard as I could til he came. I could join him if I felt like it.

I didn't. But I flung a whole net sack full of multi-colored plastic balls at him as hard as I could.

I had got the money first, so I got dressed, got my gear, and split for a coffee shop.

As it would happen, my New Year's date stood me up, and I had to find lodging. In Dallas. On New Year's. With the Cotton Bowl crowds. Rooms were dear znd scarce, and didn't have means of locomotion except the Dallas Transit on holiday schedule, so I spent the 31st walking from hotel to hotel trying to find a room and when I did find one, it ate up a big chunk of the money I'd so nefariously got. I had enough for bus fare back to Shepard on Jan 2.

Jolly Holidays!!!!

Immediately...

 

>Almost every day I encounter a jeremiad berating "the Media" for NOT being "pro-democracy," at all or enough. This complaint expresses a misunderstanding ot the evolution of "the press.

>The media can't be "pro-democracy," because they are inherently "pro-Corporate," owned lock, stock and barrel and directed by boardrooms of mega (and not infrequently MAGA) corporations which, as we all know, are autocratic and authoritarian and thus hostile to equality.

>The Media Consolidation movement of the late 70s through the 90s--it might properly be described as "monopolization"--erased the public as its sponsor and turned to customers. The "free press" completed AJ Liebling's prescience when in the late '40s he wrote, "The press is free... to those who own one."

>Any "media-ted" communication is necessarily and unavoidably altered in the process. None of our experiences which we do not live in the existential moment are "authentic." All have been infused with the "intention" of the interests which own and control them. and those interests are inherently, at the minimum, passively aggressively hostile to democracy and equality.

>Nothing you/we have learned, essentially since birth, has been unedited except our raw experience. So, part of the purpose of a "good education" is to provide one with the tools necessary to deconstruct the edited versions, and make informed decisions about how to interpret them.

Yeah, adulting's hard.

Banished: 30 Days in the Hole

I received this notice from FukkBukkk yesterday. Please, tell me if you can find COVID "misinformation."

You can't post or comment for 30 days

This is because you previously posted something that didn't follow our Community Standards.

This post goes against our standards on misinformation that could cause physical harm, so only you and the admins of La Plaza - Political Chatter (SFBB) can see it.

If you think we've made a mistake you can disagree with the decision.

John KonopakLa Plaza - Political Chatter (SFBB)

3d  ·

A tweet asked if Joe Biden is doing a good job.

I replied:

Given who he is, and the tenuous quality of his Senate "Majority," and the unremitting, almost criminal, opposition of the GOPfaux-Fascisti, the insurrection and the incessant attacks by That Fucking Guy and his cult in the several States, I don't know what else he could have done.

Inflation's not his "fault," nor are gas prices, and obstinate, ignorant, intolerant imbeciles have clogged up the vaccination/COVID-prevention efforts. DINOs have gutted his social agenda.

The GOP are determined not to give him (and the Democrats) a "victory" by passing the restoration of the Voting Rights bill, and will stall that and everything else for another 10 months, until they either retake the Congress or don't.

Continuendo...The Power of Sheer Stupidity

 

Around about 1850, John Stuart Mill, regarded by many to be the smartest person ever, who spoke English as a "native tongue," told friends: “Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives...

Amplifying the nostrum, Mill continued: "Suppose any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party must, by the law of its constitution, be the stupidest party; and I do not see why honorable gentlemen should see that position as at all offensive to them, for it ensures their being always an extremely powerful party . . .

"There is so much dense, solid force in sheer stupidity, that any body of able men with that force pressing behind them may ensure victory in many a struggle, and many a victory the Conservative party has gained through that power."

Pffffft! The Theory of The Social Atomizer

ONE HUNDRED SIXTY EIGHT

ONE HUNDRED SIXTY EIGHT

That's the number of hours in a week. That's the number of hours every media "channel" or source has to fill, 52 times a year. Do the arithmetic: 8700+ hrs per year. Times the apparently COUNTLESS "channels" available--certainly in their tens of thousands, and you have The Programmer's Dilemma.

And NO DEAD AIR! There's gotta be something "on" them at all times. The Eyes have it.

So we see why anything anybody offers to fill that ravening maw of time, for public consumption, is swiftly and uncritically snatched up, circulated, and promulgated, no matter its veracity, or credibility, or verifiability.

We maqy therefore also see why it has become increasingly difficult to rebut and refute unfounded or spurious allegations, when they proliferate and are promoted as valuablecommodities.

And we may also see why "mediated reality" is the only "reality" we know, anymore, and it is fractured into a billion pieces, each carefully directed at what the particular "being" your traceable behavior indicates you to be will believe.

I call it "The Theory of Social Atomization," which describes social manipulation at levels we are customarily NOT comfortable talking about. To understand it requires abandoning the ("learned") skepticism of subliminal suggestibility--the "I Can't Be Hypnotized" syndrome.

For more than 100 years, the "best & brrightest minds in in individual and group psychology have been employed at what J. Ellul (1964), the French sociologist, called "the Formation of Men's Attitudes."

My patience with such arcana wanes with the advancing dark. I wanna come back to this later. My nightly dram of swingle malt Scotch beckons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_Men%27s_Attitudes

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Why DO the Dems "Play Fair?"

 

One frequently hears complaints that the Dems are gormless because they don't abuse "the rules," and play 'dirty' the way the GOPhukkkerz do.

It's true. The Dems do "play by the rules.

That's because the Dems don't HAVE "power." So they HAVE to play by the rules.

There are two factors:

1) they don't have the votes in Congress (or caucus discipline), and

2) as the Party of the 2nd (and Lower-class) Citizens, they don't have the cachet, status or standing to assail the big money, even IF they had the desire.

Democrats aren't so much a "party" as they are a portmanteau of occasionally hostile, constantly competing, minority interests scrabbling for the scraps the GOP deign to distribute.

Democrats require BIG majorities to initiate or instigate big changes. That majority hasn't been available since Raygoon and the GOPhux split the FDR coalition on Race and Civil Rights.

The GOPhux need only one vote to alter the structure of the whole country.

The GOPhux have a Party mantra from which they seldom deviate: Fuck the poor. The Dems' factions don't have enough in common to agree on a single (albeit sotto voce) unifying principle that the troops can rally around.

"Social justice!" is great but it doesn't have the "popular" resonance of "fuck the poor."

MY Post-Halloween Catholic Costume

 

Holy Day of Obligation?

Early November is a busy time for RC hagiography. Today, Nov. 1, in the Roman Catholic ecclesiatical calendar, is "All Saints' Day," the antithesis of "Hallowe'en" when the unquiet dead are said to move about. "All Saints' Day" celebrates the quiescent, honored departed, who gained Heaven on the first try.. There are literally uncounted/ uncountable THOUSANDS of them, many martyred, who come in for hagiographic attention. The next day on All Souls' Day (Nov. 2) all the departed are remembered.

Nov. 1's also the anniversary of the first time, of many, I was ever sent home from school.

In Cleveland, OH, in the suburbs of which I grew up in the 50s, children in Roman Catholic schools were encouraged to attend school on Nov. 1 costumed as either their favorite, or their namesake, "Saint." In my case, there are LOTS of "Saints John:" Chrysostom; Damascrne, Revelator, the Baptist, etc. There are literally dozens of 'em. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_John)

But my father decided my "patron Saint" would be "John, the Baptist," who was martyred by being decapitated at the whim of the Babylonian whore, Salome.

So, that year (3rd Grade), my father--who had a mordant sense of humor to go along with an agnostic sensibility--decided to send me to school as St. John, the Baptist's HEAD.

He got a large, aluminum, baking dish, cut out a hole in it for my head, slipped it around my neck (after dulling the edge), wrapped the rest of me in a "blood-stained" sheet, and off I went.

And back I came.

With a harsh note from the parish priest about blasphemy.

How Deep Is "De Nial?"

 

THIS IS UTTER, TOTAL, COMPLEAT HORSESHIT!

This and similar memes show up out here all the time, and they are the very definition of "SPECIOUS."

That is, they appear to be logical, but they are faulty in their initial premises.

This shit is victim blaming, pure and simple, and total bullshit.

NO ONE has sufficient control over or the kind of command of their life-world that this reeking pile of elitist twaddle posits:

>>If one is not successful, happy, or rich, it is ONE'S OWN FAULT. You had choices, you just made the wrong ones<<

This pernicious attitude suffuses, pervades and pollutes all of USer culture.

"Freedom" is a myth propagated by the wealthy to rhetorically placate the poor, the weak, the ordinary folk, while preventing them from exercising it.

YOU ARE "SOCIETY'S CHILD!"

Helplessly Hoping...

I am growing in frustration at the rone of public "voices" of the alleged "left" carrying on in the wake of the democratic debacle of the past year, as if there were some magical, as yet undisclosed treatment for the Nation's assorted, debilitating ills and justifiying their incomprehensible, public optimism. It verges on DENIAL, the fervor with which the encroachment of fascism is ignored. I just watched John Oliver raving rationally about "Voting Rights" and, while he's sufficiently, and frequently hilariously outraged (I'll never view lobster the same way again), he's stretching for "hope."  

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN9OdruH_qM)

We don't need "hope." We need DESPERATION! 

All hands to the pumps and repel boarders!

It now seems impossible to me that these divisions--symbolized by the various strains of the virus crisis--can be healed. Sadly, in a "democracy"--especiaslly in a simulacrum like ours, all hollowed out by "media_ation," an active, wealthy, fanatical minority--1/3 of the people?--can obstruct, damage, and prevent policies the Majority support and which preserve even the current charade. Witness: the present "Debt ceiling/spending limit" kabuki.

There really is NOTHING we can do about it. It's well past "doing something." The moment passed when the Ruuskis installed the Saffron Shitstain. Nothing WILL "restore" trust in elections, once it is effectively problematized, because nothing CAN restore it. No subsequent election will ever be conducted without post facto challenges by well-financed losers. That dam has burst. There's no going back. There's no "there" to go back to. It's being erased, effaced, defaced.

I would wager dollahs to quatloos that the elections in 2022 will be characterized by the same tactic. No "loss" at the polls will go uncontested, especially by the GQPhux. And this will become the rule, which won't be contested itself because of the benefit and advantages it bestows. Any functioning "democracy," especially such an aspirational one as this, so dreadfully unfulfilled, yet so hubristically proud of itself, absolutely requires that the governed trust in the means of selecting their governors. In "obsoleting" that agreement, our "democracy" has been turned against us while we watched, helplessly. Because, what can YOU do? They have packed the judiciary with Federalist Society toadies. The SCROTUS is an embarrassing, and a partisan joke presided over by "practicing" acolytes of Opus Dei. They've corrupted as much of the electoral machineries of the State as they can reach, and are extending their reach all the time. Votes don't matter; STATES matter, and they've been gerrymandered to ensure continued GQPhux dominance. Election laws are being overturned and rewritten to exclude the poor, the young, and people of color from Florida to Arizona. Seventeen States, over 100 distinct pieces of legislation. By the time we get to the next chance to vote, it'll be a dead letter. Such is my deepest dread.

The First Day of the REST of My Life: SEPT. 21, 1964

 

An eternity ago, last night, I was in a cheap hotel room, on the corner of Second & Central in downtown Albuquerque, awaiting the morrow, when I would fly to San Antonio for Basic Training.

(I had enlisted in April, just after my 18th, and gotten an induction deferrment for six months so I could play all summer in Santa Fe, where I had the position of Lifeguard at the city's preeminent and most reknowned hostel, La Fonda. I had a side gig operating an arc-light during performances of the Santa Fe Opera, too, which came with the very best lagniappe, the post-performance parties at the Ranch. But I digress...)

In the morning, they fed us at a nearby diner, then formally inducted the lot of us at the recruiting office. They then loaded us onto a Bluebird military bus, took us out to the airport, loaded us onto a commercial flight (an American Airlines Constellation) and off we went. I don't recall "making friends" or attempts to be made friends with at point with any of my fellow inductees. 

We arrived mid-morning in San Antonio. It was hot AND humid, still, in September,  unlike my accustomed haunts and runs in the High Chihuahuan. I had descended nearly a MILE in elevation from 'Burque. I soon learned what a difference that made--the same as for athletes who train at altitude.

There was a collection area at the airport, where enlistees waited upon arrival. It was manned by Sergeants of assorted stripes who maintained stern order in the terminal.  Another AF Bluebird bus collected a gang of enlistees from the civilian airport on the north side of town and shuttled us to Lackland AFB, far on the southern edge of the city.

Debauching from the bus, inside the gate, gut tight with anxious anticipation, we were rudely introduced to what was to come by a short, round, angry little "Senior Airman" named Bottelieri (after 57 years I remember the sonofabitch's name and appearance). That's where and when the adventure began. Bott (as we soon called him) lined us up in approved military style and performed the first of MANY inspections we/I'd endure in the forthcoming years. When he got to me, he reached up, wordlessly took the RayBans from my face, and unceremoniously stomped 'em into fragments on the drill pad. Message: Received.

Air Force "basic" was not of the same order as that experienced by enlistees in the other branches. It was notoriously 'easier' than the Army, not to mention the Marines. There seemed to be a tacit understanding that, since we were probably NOT destined for the front lines or infantry warfare, the rigors of training were somewhat relaxed. 

For instance, I never had to march 20 miles under a full pack, or run a mile under six minutes. We did pretty extensive PT but, for me, coming from a MILE higher than Lackland, it seemed I could take a deep breath at reveille and exhale at taps.

But what the USAF lacked in physiological rigor, it more than made up for in gratuitous, capricious humiliations, inflicted with glee and malice by the "Drill Instructors"--witness the incident of my (expensive) shades. I think they were recruited for the jobs BECAUSE they were capable  of such asswholery and shittery. 

WHAT WAS "THE LAST STRAW?"

 

Bruce Lindner wrote:

“Dear Republicans:

You didn’t object when you heard Donald Trump say he likes to grab women “by the pussy.”

You didn’t object when he kicked the American media out of the Oval Office and handed two Russian spies classified data entrusted to him by one of our allies.

You didn’t object when he likened our intelligence community to “Nazis.”

You didn’t object when he stood before the Memorial Wall of Stars at Langley and told lie after lie about himself and the election.

You didn’t object while at the Helsinki Summit, he met behind closed doors with the Russian President.

You didn’t object to him banning the American Press from covering that meeting.

You didn’t object when he emerged from that meeting and sided with the Russian President over the findings of our own intelligence community.

You didn’t object when the Trump campaign admitted to accepting Russian offers to help him defeat SecState Clinton.

You didn’t object when he stood before the cameras and said; “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find 30k e-mails that are missing.”

You didn’t object when the Russians responded that VERY DAY with stolen emails.

You didn’t object when it was confirmed that the basis for the Trump Tower meeting was a total fabrication. That it had nothing to do with adopting Russian children, and everything to do with swinging the election.

You didn’t object when it was revealed that Trump himself floated the cover story of adoptions from Russia.

You didn’t object when it was confirmed that his campaign staff had met with Russian agents over 150 times, after claiming they had never met with them at all.

You didn’t object when the Trump campaign declined to inform the FBI about the Russian advances.

You didn’t object when Trump’s campaign manager gave internal data on four key battleground states to agents working for Putin.

You sure as hell didn’t object when those very same four battleground states miraculously shifted towards trump on Election Day.

You didn’t object when Trump kicked his Attorney General out of the room and asked the FBI Director to let his National Security Advisor off the hook for lying about his contacts with Russian agents.

You didn’t object when Trump fired that FBI Director for declining to let Flynn off the hook.

You didn’t object when Special Counsel Robert Mueller said he couldn’t establish a conspiracy, largely because so many of Trump’s staffers lied during their interviews, and because Trump himself refused to submit to a live interview.

You didn’t object when Special Counsel Mueller cited no fewer than ten instances of the president himself obstructing justice in his report: an impeachable offense.

You didn’t object when it was revealed he cheated on his wife with a porn star.

You didn’t object when it was revealed that he paid off that porn star to the tune of $130,000.00 to buy her silence just prior to the election, an illegal attempt to hide relevant facts from the electorate.

You didn’t object when he withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA, which was the first and ONLY treaty that’s successfully kept Iranian nuclear ambitions in check.

You didn’t object when he pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accords.

You didn’t object when he scuttled the Obama administration’s clean air and water standards.

You didn’t object when he opened up vast tracts of protected wilderness to his friends in the oil and mining industries.

You didn’t object to the myriad cases of violations of the emoluments clause.

You didn’t object when he mocked a disabled man at one of his rallies.

You didn’t object to the recently-discovered military stopovers at Trump properties in Scotland.

You didn’t object when after mass shooting after mass shooting, he wouldn’t lift a finger to protect even little school children from gun violence.

You didn’t object when he started putting tariffs on everyone from China to Turkey, which have undeniably hurt millions of people around the world and shaken the stock markets.

You didn’t object when he gave the corporate farming industry $26B in compensation for their losses due to his tariffs.

You didn’t object when he channeled $3.6B in Pentagon appropriations to his wall on the Mexican border.

You didn’t object when Trump called out against “Islamic terrorism” on multiple occasions, but never once for terrorism by white nationalists.

You didn’t object when he forcibly separated little children from their parents.

You didn’t object when he confined those children to chain-link paddocks.

You didn’t object when a whistleblower revealed the president had on multiple occasions said things that potentially undermined our nation’s safety and security.

You didn’t object when his personal lawyer, his personal consultant, and his army of sycophants at Fox News have repeatedly and consistently lied about ALL of the above for three excruciatingly long years.

So here’s my question for you: What about any of the above do you believe entitles you to the right to call yourselves “patriots?” In anything other than today’s bizarro-world, you wouldn’t even make the rank of American. When this nightmare ends, we’ll remind you of just how patriotic you were during these days. Your karma is gonna sting.”