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Sunday, January 31, 2010

PART II | Five Creepiest Defense Attorney Websites


#2 Statutory Rape Defense Attorneys




Trial Attorney Richard Allaye Chan doesn't rely on pictures to hawk his services, much to my disappointment. Instead, he opted for a single stock photo of some pillars which are decidedly less engaging than a shot of a malicious and accusing child.



See? See how much better that is, Dick?

To be fair, he has a bigger job to do than advertise his firm: He has to explain to his clients what their conviction means. Statutory is a big word, and Richard Allaye Chan burns 223 words defining it. In fact, his homepage reads more like a Wikipedia post than a proposition for representation.

The Highlight:

"The situation may be a mere case of mistaken identity or the conniving scheme of an underage person to destroy your reputation."



It's a trap!

Statutory rape accusations are the result of one of these two things--they are literally the only options presented on the site. It's startling that anyone ends up in prison for statutory rape in the first place. Lady Justice is indeed blind if she would trust one of these stereotypically "conniving" little beasts enough to convict, or possibly just jealous that the young girls are getting all my attention.


#1 Domestic Violence Defense Attorneys



Domestic Violence Attorneys

Pawuk & Pawuk, P.A., have chosen one of the most questionable photographs possible for a website aimed at people accused of domestic abuse. Assuming the image is supposed to be related to the theme of the site, the message seems to be that sometimes women need to shut their goddamn mouths. It's unclear whether it is her husband's hand over her mouth or the lawyer's hand but the point is, she was talking and someone remedied that situation. The only alternative is that she committed the domestic violence with her extraordinary man hands and is shocked at her own actions, in which case I applaud Pawuk & Pawuk on their willingness to recognize that abuse isn't a one-way gender street.


The Highlight:

"Domestic violence seems to be the arrest of choice for law enforcement these days."

I am a sucker for unsubstantiated declarations. I certainly hope this is true. I like to imagine police officers scrambling to be the first to answer a domestic disturbance call because it's their favorite type of arrest. It would explain the somber eyes all police officers share during traffic stops; there is little chance of a domestic violence arrest without a domicile.


Of all the websites I have chanced upon, this is by far my favorite. A little research reveals that Pawuk & Pawuk are not father and son, or even brothers. They are husband and wife. A husband and wife law team defending domestic abusers. I can't think of anything more perfect and I want to know them, desperately. I want to know if they discuss strategy during sex. I want to know if they discuss sex during those whispering moments between lawyers. I want to know if he has scars and she has man hands. So far, they have not returned any of my calls.

The 5 Creepiest Defense Attorney Websites



The 5 Creepiest Defense Attorney Websites

By Soren Bowie | Jan 29, 2010




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Sadly, I have never been poor. I was never forced to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I'm not even sure what bootstraps are exactly but I am certain that if I ever owned any, one of the servants did the pulling for me. Without hopelessness of poverty in my life, there are quadrants of the human condition with which I am unfamiliar. Criminal life, alcoholism and domestic abuse are the choice friends of desperation alone. They all sit in the parking lot together on the hood of a Camero, smoking cigarettes and looking cool.


I am jealous.

I would pray for the bottomless writing opportunity available in that kind of destitution if only praying for things wasn't equally as foreign to me. So, unable to join their ranks, I can only fantasize about being one of the dredges of society; I think about drug deals going south, I neglect my plants like illegitimate children and I spend a lot of time on defense attorney websites.

These websites, it turns out, are a goldmine of information about, for and written by desperate people. They are exactly as overt as you would expect them to be, only more so. I have compiled my favorite five for your enjoyment. Or, if you are a criminal feeling the firm, calloused hand of legality bend you gently over a witness stand, these websites may help. Also, let's hang out, I have a lot of questions.


#5 DUI Defense Attorneys




I deduced from Miles L. Berman's advertising campaign that alcoholics who accidentally kill other people with automobiles also have a proclivity for fighter jets and volleyball. Something I did not know. Miles has labeled himself the, "Top Gun DUI defense attorney" and even uses the same wings around a star emblem to let everyone know that, yes he does mean business, and yes he does mean the movie.


The Highlight:

"Friends don't let friends plead guilty."

Miles has cleverly taken the tired old adage "Friends don't let friends drive drunk" and flipped it into something controversial, and dangerous, and even a little confusing; all the qualities I would look for in a criminal defense attorney.


Unlike M.A.D.D., Miles knows that the original slogan is exactly why nobody's mother is his/her best friend. A real friend will let you do whatever you please as long as it makes for a story later, whether that be getting fast food at four in the morning or fleeing the scene of an accident. That said, a friend reserves the right to fight you if you so much as think about pleading guilty to a DUI, and Miles L. Berman will do just that. Such are the rules of camaraderie.


#4 Drug Charge Defense Attorneys




Terani Law Firm |Criminal Attorney USA.com

The Terani Law Firm knows that cocaine addicts don't have the time to sit down and read a bunch of polysyllabic words when a picture can do the same job. The first thing on the page is a photograph highlighting the objects their clients identify with most, namely drugs and money. I've spent a healthy chunk of time picturing how the decision for the photo was made:


"OK, we need something that pops off the page. Something they can relate to."
"Yes, I like where your head's at, Larry. How about some drugs and some money?
"Fuck me, that's gold!"
"Let's shoot it."
"Solid gold!"
"We're gonna need some money."
"Yeah, like a stack of hundred dollar bills."
"I've got exactly one hundred and one dollars. You?"
"I don't own a wallet."
"Fuck, OK just bury the one dollar bill under the hundred, no one will notice. We're also gonna need some drugs."
"Yeah, drugs!"
"Hmm, I've got some multivitamins. That should work."
"I've only got these opioids."
"..."
"Will that work?"
"Larry, what are you doing with opioids?"
"I use 'em."
"..."
"It's not what you think. I use them recreationally."
"OK, we should talk about this after the shoot."
"And sugar! We should use a sugar packet!"
"Seriously, Larry. After this, we're talking."
"Ooooh, it looks just like cocaine! This is exciting!"

The Highlight:

"Aggressive Drug Crime Defense Attorneys Doing Whatever It Takes To Defend You."


Judging by the picture directly following the slogan, sometimes doing whatever it takes means blowing three lines of coke off a mirror. Also, it's a shame future clients aren't expected to read much more on the page because there are other helpful gems hidden all over. "If [law enforcement] made any legal errors we will exploit them for your benefit." It's that kind of dedication and attention to detail from the Terani Law Firm that makes me want to start up some sort of habit.



#3 Sexual Abuse Defense Attorneys





Innocence Legal Team

It's hard to argue with the logic of dropping "Innocence" in the name of your law firm, but that seems to be the crowning moment of reason. The homepage has the look and feel of a science fiction website. It's hard to say why they chose a background of deep red sinews surrounded by darkness but it feels a little like being inside a human body, and maybe that's the point; the Innocence Legal Team understands you so completely it's like they can see deep inside you, and there, written across your heart is "Rape"... but also Innocence. Innocent Rape. Why can't the rest of the world see that distinction?


The Highlight:

The image of a furious woman pointing out her alleged attacker, me.


I do not like this woman. Her eyes betray some ulterior motive to which I am not privy. Also, I have never--and I realize this is something a lot of sex offenders probably say--seen her before in my life. Most importantly, she is not the type of woman I would sleep with. In fact, I would wager that she is not the type of woman anyone would sleep with, and I think the Innocence Legal Team knows that.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Flame WARRIORS

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Issues has an issue and she won't rest until it becomes your issue, too. Even when she's not talking about her issue it's clear she would rather be talking about her issue. Something of a secular evangelist, he religion, her raison d'etre, her abiding passion is....well, her issue. Not exclusive to any ideological orientation, her issue could be the environment, abortion rights, raw foods, breast feeding, whatever. Her obsession, however, provides the key to defeating her in battle; she can't tolerate indifference, so if her thrusts are simply ignored she will rage, accuse, condemn, plead and finally, go away.


Is it just you or does this guy seem to babble on and on without making any sense whatsoever? Does he lurch from one non sequitur to another? Are you baffled by his obscure metaphors? Are there so many typos you think that maybe he was typing while wearing a catcher's mit? Can he really MEAN what he just said? What in the hell is hey talking about, anyway? Is this guy smoking something? Well, yes...in fact he is, and lightly tethered in orbit high above the Earth Bong remains far beyond the grasp of the even the most powerful of Warriors.


Ennui only rouses himself from his torpor to cajole other Warriors to be more interesting - without, of course, ever contributing anything of interest himself. Ennui has limited weaponry at his disposal, but his majestic affectation of boredom provides an effective defense to attacks. When pressed in battle he will announce his intention of moving on to a more stimulating forum, but instead he will generally lurk quietly until the threat passes.


Eagle Scout is a positive, constructive Warrior who endeavors to submit original articles which contain useful content and relevant information with supporting citations and links, thus initiating meaningful discussion threads. Eagle Scout regards the internet as an uplifting, egalitarian, worldwide arena for the exchange of ideas among intelligent, thinking individuals. He does not openly attack, but will (ever tactfully) chastise disruptive comments, gratuitous insults and cretinous insipidity. He is always kind and helpful to Newbie, and will shrug off even the most egregious insults. Eagle Scout is loathed with a poisonous intensity by Evil Clown, Jerk, Enfant Provocateur and Ego.

CAUTION: Sometimes Imposter, Evil Clown or Troller will masquerade as Eagle Scout. There have also been reports of Eagle Scout becoming Jekyl and Hyde.




Profundus Maximus eagerly holds forth on all subjects, but his thin knowledge will not support a sustained assault and therefore his attacks quickly peter out. Profundus Maximus often uses big words, obscure terms and...ahem...even Latin to bluff his way through battle..


Unlike Profundus Maximus, Philosopher can actually be quite knowledgeable on a variety of subjects. Somewhat humorless and aloof, he is also slow to anger, and when he deigns to join in the fray he is considerate of other opinions. His fighting tactics are direct and uncomplicated - he smothers the opposition with his ponderous and lengthy cogitations. Only the strongest and most patient Warriors can survive an extended battle with Philosopher.


Propeller Head knows just about everything there is to know about computers and the internet, and is a little mystified that you don't. Often an inarticulate and clumsy fighter he is still much to be feared because with a few deft keystrokes he can reduce your computer to a smoking heap of ruined metal.


Diplomat butts into hot disputes, presuming that the combatants will welcome and appreciate his even-handed and eminently reasonable mediation. Frankly, he gets what he deserves.




Unsteady in his knowledge of computers and cyberculture Newbie perambulates the internet, blithely stumbling his way into discussion forums. He seldom reads the FAQs and is utterly clueless about the basics of netiquette. When engaged in battle Newbie's usual tactical gambit is to feign helplessness, often going limp or crying when cornered. While Newbie doesn't seek conflict he will lash out comically when his feelings are hurt. Most Warriors will either ignore Newbie or treat him with mild disdain, but a few, such as Jerk and Evil Clown, take special pleasure in torturing him. Others, especially Propeller Head and Xenophobe, have a particular animus against Newbie and view his bumbling as an affront that must be punished.


Grammarian usually has little to contribute to a discussion and possesses few effective weapons. To compensate, he will point out minor errors in spelling and grammar. Because of Grammarian's obvious weakness most Warriors ignore him.




For Tireless Rebutter there is no such thing as a trivial dispute. He regards all challenges as barbarians at the gates. His unflagging tenacity in making his points numbs and eventually wears down the opposition. Confident that his arguments are sound, Tireless Rebutter can't understand why he is universally loathed.


Be he a Baptist, Scientologist or Zoroastrian, in the heat of battle Deacon will call down Divine retribution on all net sinners, and will never miss an opportunity to blather endlessly about his religion. Deacon is fervent and earnest, but seldom contributes anything of interest or substance to the discussion. Occasionally Tireless Rebutter or Philosopher will rouse themselves engage Deacon in battle, but they soon lose interest because of his utter predictability.




Xenophobe is usually a long-term discussion forum participant and he thinks of the forum as his private compound. Xenophobe regards new forum arrivals as mentally deficient and perhaps even having criminal tendencies, and they are invariably approached with suspicion and condescension. Xenophobe will mount a furious attack if a Newbie has the temerity to make critical observations about the forum's social dynamics, or questions its prevailing opinions.




Troller is looking for a response...ANY response, and he will chum the waters with complaints, insults, compliments, and inflammatory tidbits hoping that someone...ANYONE, will take the bait. Generally quite harmless - practices a form of catch and release. Nonetheless, he can upset the delicate ecology of a discussion forum. Once a forum becomes aware of his presence, however, all feeding activity ceases and Troller must move on to more promising waters.


Whisper maintains a benign demeanor and carefully avoids open conflict. When aroused, however, she will send vigorous attacks to sympathetic forum participants via private e mail in an attempt to sway the tide of battle. A typical Whisper maneuver is to "accidentally" post an ambiguously critical, but ostensibly private message to the discussion forum, e.g., "Dear Mary - see what I mean about this guy?" Or, "John - did you read what Bill said? I rest my case!" When challenged she will protest (disingenuously) that she hit the "reply" key by mistake, that the message was never intended to be read by forum participants, that the message was out of context, etc. Whisper's intent is to gain a tactical advantage by leaving the impression that her side in the conflict is gathering heavy forces just over the horizon, and though transparently obvious to veteran Warriors, this feint can often blunt a successful attack by less experienced fighters.


Enfant Provocateur likes to stir up trouble because...because, well...just because. This species of Flame Warrior is almost always young and male - it could be just a hormone thing.


Rat prefers to attack with private messages rather than out in the open. CAUTION : If a Warrior starts to get the better of the fight he will suddenly post out of context excerpts of his opponent's messages to the list. When taken to task for betraying private correspondence he will insist that he did it because he was being harassed or that his adversary poses a threat to other, more vulnerable Warriors, such as Innocence Abused.


ALLCAPS attempts to compensate for his limited rhetorical weaponry through the extravagant use of capitalized words - something netizens refer to as SHOUTING. Sure, a sprinkling of capitalized words can add some zip to a thrust, but they should be used sparingly. Even worse from a tactical point of view, too much shouting alerts other Warriors to the opponent's verbal WEAKNESS and emotional EXCITABILITY.

Coming Soon: Ego, Cyber Sisters, Netiquette Nazi, Crybaby, Rebel Without a Clue, Nitpick, Perv, Blowhard and many more.

Trick Trick ~ From Tha D

*
"...all your guns. I done been to your city, I ain't seen 'ner one.  So, go on keep talkin', I'ma catch ya ass one day - go on keep walkin', 'cause y'don't really want gun play..."

I still love this song! /LL















Thursday, January 28, 2010

Losing Jordan

*


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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 




Losing Jordan

A thousand volumes of nothing but a continuous repetition of the expression of pain could not come close to describing the all-encompassing, soul-destroying grief of losing my precious daughter.


There are no words in any tongue known to man to adequately express the depth of the horrific pain of losing my child--my sweet Jordan. If I were to convey the extent of this agony, the world would be filled with the never-ending echoes of my screams.


I held my sweet, sweet Jordan in my arms as she took her last breath. If God was merciful he would have allowed me to die that day as well. Continuously, day and night, I pray that He will be merciful yet.


Were the entire world to weep with me, there would be a surfeit of unshed tears of sorrow remaining.

"Catcher in the Rye" Author J.D. Salinger Dies

"Catcher in the Rye" Author J.D. Salinger Dies



J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.


Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's longtime literary representative, Harold Ober Agency. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.


"The Catcher in the Rye," with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made "Catcher" a featured selection, advised that for "anyone who has ever brought up a son" the novel will be "a source of wonder and delight - and concern."


Enraged by all the "phonies" who make "me so depressed I go crazy," Holden soon became American literature's most famous anti-hero since Huckleberry Finn. The novel's sales are astonishing - more than 60 million copies worldwide - and its impact incalculable. Decades after publication, the book remains a defining expression of that most American of dreams: to never grow up.


Salinger was writing for adults, but teenagers from all over identified with the novel's themes of alienation, innocence and fantasy, not to mention the luck of having the last word. "Catcher" presents the world as an ever-so-unfair struggle between the goodness of young people and the corruption of elders, a message that only intensified with the oncoming generation gap.


Novels from Evan Hunter's "The Blackboard Jungle" to Curtis Sittenfeld's "Prep," movies from "Rebel Without a Cause" to "The Breakfast Club," and countless rock 'n' roll songs echoed Salinger's message of kids under siege. One of the great anti-heroes of the 1960s, Benjamin Braddock of "The Graduate," was but a blander version of Salinger's narrator.


"`Catcher in the Rye' made a very powerful and surprising impression on me," said Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon, who read the book, as so many did, when he was in middle school. "Part of it was the fact that our seventh grade teacher was actually letting us read such a book. But mostly it was because `Catcher' had such a recognizable authenticity in the voice that even in 1977 or so, when I read it, felt surprising and rare in literature."


The cult of "Catcher" turned tragic in 1980 when crazed Beatles fan Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon, citing Salinger's novel as an inspiration and stating that "this extraordinary book holds many answers."


By the 21st century, Holden himself seemed relatively mild, but Salinger's book remained a standard in school curriculums and was discussed on countless Web sites and a fan page on Facebook.


On the Web Thursday, there was an outpouring of sadness for the loss of Salinger, as many flocked together on social networks to relate their memories of "Catcher in the Rye." Topics such as "Salinger" and "Holden Caufield" were among the most popular on Twitter. CNN's Larry King tweeted that "Catcher" is his favorite book. Humorist John Hodgman wrote: "I prefer to think JD Salinger has just decided to become extra reclusive."


Salinger's other books don't equal the influence or sales of "Catcher," but they are still read, again and again, with great affection and intensity. Critics, at least briefly, rated Salinger as a more accomplished and daring short story writer than John Cheever.


The collection "Nine Stories" features the classic "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," the deadpan account of a suicidal Army veteran and the little girl he hopes, in vain, will save him. The novel "Franny and Zooey," like "Catcher," is a youthful, obsessively articulated quest for redemption, featuring a memorable argument between Zooey and his mother as he attempts to read in the bathtub.


"Everyone who works here and writes here at The New Yorker, even now, decades after his silence began, does so with a keen awareness of J.D. Salinger's voice," said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, where many of Salinger's stories appeared. "In fact, he is so widely read in America, and read with such intensity, that it's hard to think of any reader, young and old, who does not carry around the voices of Holden Caulfield or Glass family members."


"Catcher," narrated from a mental facility, begins with Holden recalling his expulsion from a Pennsylvania boarding school for failing four classes and for general apathy.


He returns home to Manhattan, where his wanderings take him everywhere from a Times Square hotel to a rainy carousel ride with his kid sister, Phoebe, in Central Park. He decides he wants to escape to a cabin out West, but scorns questions about his future as just so much phoniness.


"I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it?" he reasons. "The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question."


"The Catcher in the Rye" became both required and restricted reading, periodically banned by a school board or challenged by parents worried by its frank language and the irresistible chip on Holden's shoulder.


"I'm aware that a number of my friends will be saddened, or shocked, or shocked-saddened, over some of the chapters of `The Catcher in the Rye.' Some of my best friends are children. In fact, all of my best friends are children," Salinger wrote in 1955, in a short note for "20th Century Authors."


"It's almost unbearable to me to realize that my book will be kept on a shelf out of their reach," he added.


Salinger also wrote the novellas "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" and "Seymour - An Introduction," both featuring the neurotic, fictional Glass family that appeared in much of his work.


His last published story, "Hapworth 16, 1928," ran in The New Yorker in 1965. By then, he was increasingly viewed like a precocious child whose manner had soured from cute to insufferable. "Salinger was the greatest mind ever to stay in prep school," Norman Mailer once commented.


In 1997, it was announced that "Hapworth" would be reissued as a book - prompting a (negative) New York Times review. The book, in typical Salinger style, didn't appear. In 1999, New Hampshire neighbor Jerry Burt said the author had told him years earlier that he had written at least 15 unpublished books kept locked in a safe at his home.


"I love to write and I assure you I write regularly," Salinger said in a brief interview with the Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate in 1980. "But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it."


Jerome David Salinger was born Jan. 1, 1919, in New York City. His father was a wealthy importer of cheeses and meat and the family lived for years on Park Avenue.


Like Holden, Salinger was an indifferent student with a history of trouble in various schools. He was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy at age 15, where he wrote at night by flashlight beneath the covers and eventually earned his only diploma. In 1940, he published his first fiction, "The Young Folks," in Story magazine.


He served in the Army from 1942 to 1946, carrying a typewriter with him most of the time, writing "whenever I can find the time and an unoccupied foxhole," he told a friend.


Returning to New York, the lean, dark-haired Salinger pursued an intense study of Zen Buddhism but also cut a gregarious figure in the bars of Greenwich Village, where he astonished acquaintances with his proficiency in rounding up dates. One drinking buddy, author A.E. Hotchner, would remember Salinger as the proud owner of an "ego of cast iron," contemptuous of writers and writing schools, convinced that he was the best thing to happen to American letters since Herman Melville.


Holden first appeared as a character in the story "Last Day of the Last Furlough," published in 1944 in the Saturday Evening Post. Salinger's stories ran in several magazines, especially The New Yorker, where excerpts from "Catcher" were published.


The finished novel quickly became a best seller and early reviews were blueprints for the praise and condemnation to come. The New York Times found the book "an unusually brilliant first novel" and observed that Holden's "delinquencies seem minor indeed when contrasted with the adult delinquencies with which he is confronted."


But the Christian Science Monitor was not charmed. "He is alive, human, preposterous, profane and pathetic beyond belief," critic T. Morris Longstreth wrote of Holden.


"Fortunately, there cannot be many of him yet. But one fears that a book like this given wide circulation may multiply his kind - as too easily happens when immortality and perversion are recounted by writers of talent whose work is countenanced in the name of art or good intention."


The world had come calling for Salinger, but Salinger was bolting the door. By 1952, he had migrated to Cornish. Three years later, he married Claire Douglas, with whom he had two children, Peggy and Matthew, before their 1967 divorce. (Salinger was also briefly married in the 1940s to a woman named Sylvia; little else is known about her.)


Meanwhile, he refused interviews, instructing his agent not to forward fan mail and reportedly spending much of his time writing in a cement bunker. Sanity, apparently, could only come through seclusion.


"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes," Holden says in "Catcher."


"That way I wouldn't have to have any ... stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. I'd build me a little cabin somewhere with the dough I made."


Although Salinger initially contemplated a theater production of "Catcher," with the author himself playing Holden, he turned down numerous offers for film or stage rights, including requests from Billy Wilder and Elia Kazan. Bids from Steven Spielberg and Harvey Weinstein were also rejected.


Salinger became famous for not wanting to be famous. In 1982, he sued a man who allegedly tried to sell a fictitious interview with the author to a national magazine. The impostor agreed to desist and Salinger dropped the suit.


Five years later, another Salinger legal action resulted in an important decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court refused to allow publication of an unauthorized biography, by Ian Hamilton, that quoted from the author's unpublished letters. Salinger had copyrighted the letters when he learned about Hamilton's book, which came out in a revised edition in 1988.


In 2009, Salinger sued to halt publication of John David California's "60 Years Later," an unauthorized sequel to "Catcher" that imagined Holden in his 70s, misanthropic as ever.


Against Salinger's will, the curtain was parted in recent years. In 1998, author Joyce Maynard published her memoir "At Home in the World," in which she detailed her eight-month affair with Salinger in the early 1970s, when she was less than half his age. She drew an unflattering picture of a controlling personality with eccentric eating habits, and described their problematic sex life.


When Maynard's letters were auctioned, the buyer promised to return them to Salinger out of respect for his privacy, CBS Radio News reported.


Salinger's alleged adoration of children apparently did not extend to his own. In 2000, daughter Margaret Salinger's "Dreamcatcher" portrayed the writer as an unpleasant recluse who drank his own urine and spoke in tongues.


Margaret Salinger said she wrote the book because she was "absolutely determined not to repeat with my son what had been done with me."

Sunday, January 24, 2010

CARS FED ON CORN, PEOPLE FED ON HORSESHIT (CONTINUED)

Cars Fed on Corn, People Fed on Horseshit: Dave and Joe ponder socialism and the Tea Party





Regarding your comment, "I have not watched TV for the last 15 years."


Big deal. Everyone else does. And you gotta live among them and survive. So you are still fucked. I finally gave up on trying. I now watch "The Office," "The Good Wife," and "Law and Order" nightly. Even here in Mexico. However, you have saved yourself the endless insult of having the capitalist corporate cartels wipe their asses on your brain daily. That's at least something. It's more than I can claim.


As to: "I don't think socialism hasn't fared well in the past. A few horrible examples come to mind such as several periods in Russia as well as Maoist China. Hell, China is much more capitalistic now and they actually put their criminals to death rather than reward them with large bonuses. I've always been technical and not much of a history buff, but want to learn so what examples do you have of socialism working well?"


I can tell by your letter that understanding socialism is going to be a long slog for you. For starters, the American technical and scientific education usually amputates human insight, if at all possible, and bludgeons the humanistic spirit in order to support its absolute claims to all rightness, logic and reason. From the tiniest sub particle to the magnificent complexity of the human mind ("Why hell son, the brain is just a sack of chemicals! Have some more Prozac."), all things are deemed mechanistic and the world is one big Newtonian clockwork, stars, human emotions ... Everything.





Fortunately for those maimed by an American scientific/technical education, our corporatist government cherishes the technician and the scientist, and rewards them well. They are absolutely necessary for surveillance of the people, the production of bunker bombs, carcinogens, corn syrup, high tech dissemination of propaganda, and dazzling the proles with phony "technological progress." As in, "Wow! Would you look at that! A car that eats corn. The environment is saved!" And understandably those being rewarded are generally supportive of the capitalist system that values them so highly. That most have never read Rimbaud doesn't bother them one bit.


One the other hand, these people have absolute faith in reading and the benefits of the textual world of information. So I'd suggest reading some real history, absorb some background. Then throw the books away and think for yourself. Historians, like American scientists and the medical establishment, are whores for the empire. Generally speaking they are duly accredited and licensed propagandists and commissars for whatever regime they live under in their time. Unfortunately, one has to consume a lot of their published tripe to grasp how the history or economics rackets work.


Whether by leftist or rightist historians, you'll get the full treatment about Maoist China, Stalinist Russia. Yada yada. Neither of them was socialism any more than what we have here is democracy.


China as the new face of the successful state? China has simply gone to Confucian capitalism, which is the same gangsterism as the old capitalism, but without any civil liberties or human rights. This of course, is seen as an advance in the eyes of the world capitalist syndicates go. This is why the corporations all moved their operations to China. Slaves were cheaper there than in the US. "At last," they smiled, to themselves, "We can now fuck the worker blind, pay them shit and beat the hell out of them for laughs. Sell their second kidney on the medical market if we chose, what the hell."





People being people though, Chinese folks fresh from the farm and working 70 hours a week so they can save up for a microwave or something, declare it to be now the best system in the world. Just like Americans do. And the workers watch the "emergence of China's dynamic new middle class," consisting mostly of state educated city folks trained in newer, more sophisticated ways to work the peasantry to death, so the middle class can buy a three hundred square foot apartments and cars. Janked on nationalism, patriotism takes hold and they all say to one another: "Is this a great country or what?" I would further add that China is by no means more advanced because it executes more "criminals" (Stalin would have loved your definition of advanced Bubba!) than the US. Given that China has one and a third billion people. I would be curious to see if per capita executions exceed the US. Maybe it does. However, a high execution rate is a curious standard by which to judge the success of a civilization.


Examples of socialism working well? Various types and degrees of socialism are working well all over the planet, ranging from the communal sharing of certain indigenous peoples, to the adaptations one sees in Scandinavian countries and elsewhere in Europe. Toss the political rhetoric and just look. The common citizens are secure, at least until the innumerable world corporatists plotting to blow them out of the water succeed.


And they will. They can't lose. Capitalist corporations have a grip on the world's monetary system, and most importantly, the means of production to supply the world's human needs. Especially in the so-called "advanced countries." People everywhere salute advancement. And world's corporate cartels get to define advancement. To them advancement is the degree of cheap unnecessary crap you can ram down the people's throats, and how much you can blackmail human beings for such things as health care. Not to mention convince them that the rest of the world is not safe, that it is not made up of ordinary folks who just wanna raise families, screw and sleep well at nights, but rather is full of murderous heathens out to enslave the local Cub Scout Troop and blow up the neighborhood 7-Eleven.


To my mind, socialism is this:


A community and national philosophy, a commonly shared and not necessarily politicized way of life wherein the first priority is the fundamental well-being of the people (also known as "the masses," a term you have probably been programmed to wrinkle your brow in ominous suspicion of.) "Fundamental well-being" means that everyone eats well, enjoys safe and adequate homes and a common standard of good health. It means that children are educated to do more than just the rote tasks that serve corporate empires. It means the man actually doing the work man negotiates the value of his labor. It means that somewhere in the last third or quarter of his life, that working man, after enjoying his freedom, bacon and common work, and diligently sustaining his fellow men, is released from his toil. Released into security and peace and modest but guaranteed sustenance. He is free to nurse his aches, chase old women or take up Bourbon or Buddhism. Or both, as I have. Whatever he chooses as a free man in a free and benevolent socialist society.





Don't let the ideologues, demagogues and half-assed spoiled little middle class jerks who call themselves socialists in this country fool you. Socialism has to do with man's innate longing for justice, the undying heart within us, and all that is generous and good in that heart. That's why so many have so willingly died for it, and will continue to do so in corners of the world we will never see or hear about because we are not allowed to, but which are never the less part of this world, and therefore affective of this world.


You wrote, "I feel it was quite socialist/fascist giving future tax money to people for cars and houses that did not earn it rather than to have given every man, woman and child that was a US citizen $50,000 equally."


Nah, it's just your standard mugging of the people, then giving them some part of their own money back to prime the pump for another mugging. Doesn't matter how it was handed out. A crack addict will score crack, creating prison jobs and payday for lawyers. The mild spirited school teacher and bookkeeper will bank or invest it in some financial institution, where it can again be stolen, once "consumer confidence" and "faith in the economy has been restored." Under capitalism, everybody's life turns a profit for the empire. Capitalism's golden calf, the gross domestic product, makes no distinctions between good and evil. Both are profitable.



And "socialist/fascist?" That's right up there with "Islamic fascism." Ain't possible. Go look 'em up. These things are mutually exclusive. However, our national brain stamping machinery has successfully demonized the term socialism, and then neatly welded it onto fascism, to boot. Talk about gilding the lily! Nevertheless, it works in America. And they ask me why I think this country is too far gone to redeem "within the system." Geesh!

Lastly, then I gotta run, there was:


"[I] do not want to be forced to help anyone else, but rather want that to be my own personal decision ... don't put them on the installment plan for free, just to secure their votes at the expense of everyone else ... when society gets nothing out of it but a permanent leech ..."


For the sake of blog space, I cut the crap out of your rambling effort to define who is worthy of help and who is not, which is not yours to judge anyway, but God's, if such a judgment can indeed be made. We are all brothers and as such are our brother's keeper. Besides, when I look around me, I do not see a nation of leeches. I see damned few folks getting something for nothing. I see the top dogs, who actually are getting something for nothing, using the bullhorn of media to convince us that one of our brothers and neighbors is getting everything. They would have us believe that the most miserable among us -- the poorly educated and those whose souls have been brutalized from birth by the system's failure to provide the basic security necessary for the development of whole people -- are indeed getting something for nothing. And further believe that the most wretched deprived among us are a causal factor in the upcoming and rightful collapse of the overall meanest economic system ever devised. I see an empire of theft and coercion -- both of our own people and others around the world in our name -- which names the victim as the perp.





And I see a people who no longer feel the bonds of coursing humanity and their species, the sustaining earth under their feet, and beneath whose carpet their eternity waits. Rather I see a people conditioned to believe in the state and obey the state's designated bosses. And I see the moving hand of the corporate state active in all things from birth to death -- opening the eyes of the newly born and closing those of the newly dead. There's a profit to be made in both, and every human activity in between.


Even those among us who can see, who can observe the hardening condition induced by the enemies of human liberty and well being, feel powerless in the face of this darkening and omniscient order. Despite the quadrennial claims of our political parties during national election years, no savior has arrived and none is coming. No Obama, no miracle of "green science," no national genius will emerge to lead us. We have only the simple, direct, undeceived intelligence of ordinary men and women to rely upon. We must regain respect for the seemingly meager and often lonely powers an individual does have, and choose work and a way of living upon which we can all rely.





Acknowledgment of that, and living accordingly, engenders humility, success and the physical and spiritual thrivance of men and women and children everywhere. It is the animating spirit of socialism.

And, oh yeah, Obama ain't no socialist. I wish the hell he was.

In art and labor,

Joe Bageant
Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico

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