The Rip Post

THE FAT LADY
The Fat Lady is still singing. The Fat Lady in the pastel pant suits, that is. Hillary and her donut-fortified girth are not getting out of this presidential race. Your Illuminator, understand, is fairly covered with hives and frequently doubled over with regurgitative potential, watching The Fat Lady's antics of recent weeks. You know, as the Punditmannequins say, how she is "appealing to white male voters," etc. Well, she ain't very appealing to Lamplighter! Why, I wouldn't vote for her with your marker. The only---only---conceivably positive thing that can be said about her at this point is that. . .it takes a beeyatch. Translation: it takes a nasty, tenacious, tough sonofoa---wait a second, can't use that term here---"cookie" to run the country, and play hardball with all the hardasses running other countries, and the lardasses running Congress. Frankly, LL doubts that the O-man is up to that task, though his mantra of anti-old rhetoric is most appealing. He is smart, he is intelligent, he is trying to comport himself with reason and optimism. LL has never seen this work successfully in politics, but there is always a first time.

As to the great Punditocracy that has declared Hillary's candidacy over, well, to quote Monty Python, "I fart in your general direction." Let's examine this dispassionately. The candidates are in a virtual tie, in terms of popular vote, delegate vote. Hillary is just a slightly behind, and if Florida and Michigan had held their primaries on their primarily scheduled date, it is very likely that the former First Lady would be in first place. Despite her inept, shape-shifting, say-anything-to-get-a-vote campaign. Would all the columnists, commentators, and curmudgeons now calling for her to capitulate be doing the same thing to Obama? Not as vociferously, that's for sure. Got to be more polite to the semi-black candidate, you see.

To get to the point, what is a convention for? Is it not to nominate a candidate? LL is deeply sickened by this "process" whereby candidates are named by universal acclaim of people in the media and politics. Who are they to tell us who has been elected before the damn vote has even been taken? If LL were Billary, he would do exactly as she is doing. Stay until they kick you out---if you don't wind up winning in the bargain. There are primaries left for her to take (and she will), and the necessity of resolving the Michigan and Florida mess, and votes to be cast by delegates and superdelegates. This thing ain't over, and we're glad The Fat Lady is still singing, at least because it makes for a great raised third finger to the media and pols who have declared her candidacy as dead as Mark Twain wasn't. And as an affirmation of what little is left of the bloated, insanely expensive process of selecting a candidate.

HILLARY 'DICK' CLINTON
Double-u O double-u. I mean. . .Zounds! Hillary Clinton, thy name is Cheney. Hillary "Dick" Clinton. This is just astounding. To quote the great philosopher, Chubby Checker, "how lowwww can you gooooo?" No, I don't mean how Hillary shamelessly engaged in the sleaziest, dirtiest, Nixonian kind of grunge in the recent "debate" by attempting to link Barack "Earnest" Obama with the (gasp) Weather Underground. (Were there any cameras in Whittier to catch the corpse of Nixon clawing through the ground to applaud?) I mean this:

Hillary has attacked the "activist base" of the Democratic party, as she put it. That's correct---she blamed those fiendish anti-war lefty commies for shooting down her candidacy, which is plummeting to earth like one of those poor ducks that Cheney plugs full of buckshot once in a while. Memo to Queen Clinton: you'd be the nominee if you had the support of the anti-war "left," you donut-bloated buffoon!

Lamplighter has gone completely dark over this. Herrrre's Hillary:

"Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors (see Huffington Post.) "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."

Imagine those naughty anti-war people having the sheer disrespect to raise money and not give it to Hillary Clinton! Gosh! Of course, Queen Clinton got her facts wrong (again---seems she likes doing this, you know, the way Bush does.) Moveon.org never opposed going into Afghanistan! If ever there was evidence that this vainglorious megalomaniacal nut is really Bush Lite, this is it. To villify a grassroots organization from her own party that mobilized millions to oppose the fall-down insane "war" in Iraq is, well, words fail. Rather like Hillary.

AIRY-UDITION
Your Illuminator read Rense's "Ode to Air" column (Apr. 11) and was inspired. Got to thinking, in other words. The old light bulb went bling! I like Rense's ideas on this subject, though not much else, frankly, even if he does give me a column here. That's to his credit, posting other points of view. But he's a cantankerous old goat, and so is Lamplighter, at least sometimes. So in the spirit of cantankerousness, I hereby propose ways of increasing the oxygen content of this suffocating city.

Immediately close all the freeways, with temporary “freeway” visas issued to law enforcement, fire, delivery trucks, on the condition that their vehicles are quickly converted to run exclusively on pigeon droppings. This would force people to stay home, or move/work closer to home, and begin the process of restoring neighborhood personalities.

Close L.A. International Airport, in order to make L.A. just a wee bit less accessible to the rest of the world, and reduce the number of persons consuming local oxygen (not to mention removing jet exhaust.) I mean, what’s the point of people coming here every day from Uganda and Singapore in search of a role on a sitcom? They all wind up in taxis and behind Starbucks counters anyhow.

Order all actors and actresses---all movie folk, period---to stop granting interviews entirely, at least while in L.A. County.

Give an award to KPCC host Patt Morrison. Patt packs the maximum amount of information into her speech with the least use of oxygen. She almost never says “uh” at all, or makes a syntactical or grammatical error. It’s very impressive.

Shut down fast-food outlets and replace them with memorial gardens. The Egg McMuffin Memorial Garden. The Enchirito Memorial Garden. The In-and-Out Memorial Garden and Fountain. Topiaries in the shapes of fat people biting into greasy fried cow sandwiches. Or maybe just a lovely hedge of mock orange and roses spelling out, “Don’t Bother Me---I’m Eating.” I mean, do you ever walk into a McDonald’s during breakfast and notice the sheer sulphuric wonder of it all? Put it this way: never light a match in there. These “restaurants” are little oxygen-assassinating viruses in the world ecosystem. And scientists have the audacity to blame cow methane for contributing to global warming? I give you: Kirstie Alley.

Punish anyone seen smoking cigarettes in Los Angeles by having the words, “I’m a dumbass,” burned into their arms with the lighted ciggie. Of course, this would not be viewed as very humanitarian, despite the popularity of self-desecration and general nihilism. So instead, simply outlaw cigarette smoking in L.A. County, with first-time violators subject to immediate deportation to France. The few pipe and cigar smokers out there, who tend to smoke only at home, would be subject to a $100-per-year tax, proceeds of which go to fight cancer, AIDS, and The Christian Right.

Although science has not yet proven a link between smugness, arrogance, stupidity and lack of oxygen, LL thinks the matter is self-evident. Just look at all the people huffing and puffing and shouting as they declaim about (take your pick): the government, the Clintons, the Jews, the blacks, the “white man,” fluoridated water, “the terrorists,” and so on. Why, has there ever been so much carbon dioxide exhaled in the name of proselytizing in human history? It makes you almost grateful for blogs, where at least the people type instead of process massive amounts of good, clean O-2. So. . .no more public pontificating. Punishable by a week of watching non-stop reruns of "Oprah."

Your Illuminator will be accused of racism for this, but please reign in the “testifyin’” a little bit at all the African-American churches. It’s oxygen-sucking enough to have pastors roaring about Jesus and “God Damn America” for a couple of hours each Sunday, but all the shouted “holy spirit” responses are just rather unnecessary, aren’t they? Think, African-American friends, how much oxygen might be saved by stopping the “tell it!” and “say hallelujah!” and “mm-hmm” and “Well!” uttered every Sunday during the course of one year alone.

The following secular phrases would simply be banned outright, with a penalty of having to read a whole book in the span of a week: “finding everything all right?”; “Did you find everything you needed?”; “Have a nice day,” “’Sup,” “How’s everything?” (always asked by waitresses/waiters when you have your mouth full); and the ubiquitous cry of the man or woman stuck in traffic that looks like Mondrian painting: “Fuck YOU, ASSHOLE!” (That one is a real tree-killer.)

Right near the top of Lamplighter's effort to oxygenate L.A. would be---need it be mentioned---the eradication of cell phones. Scientists have clearly established that, according to recent statistics, no more than .0000001 percent of all cell phone conversation is necessary. The mere opportunity to speak at any and all times, especially when presented to women, is irresistible. Here are some recent conversation excerpts heard at random: “I’m walking on the street,” “I’m coming over now,” “I’m in the market.” Not only would the absence of all cell phone chatter save immeasurable amounts of oxygen, obviously, but it would leave female brains far less depleted of same---therefore reducing, among other things, the number of automobile accidents on a given day.

Hard to imagine, I know: no freeways, no women on cell phones, no actors and actresses yapping about “my craft,” no crazy hollering political commentators, no holy-rolling in black churches, no cigarettes, no fast-food joints, no yapping “customer service” types asking you inane questions, no daily influx of lost souls from all over the world looking for Hollywood, no Kirstie Alley. . .

That would clear the air.

ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION
In the end, it all sort of shakes out this way. There is Billary, who never says anything of substance and laughs like a jackal. Clear statements of policy are ice bergs, she is the Titanic. She plays Wack-A-Mole with every chance that comes along to actually say something substantial. They pop up all over the place, she wacks ‘em. She is a focus groupie.

Billary does not intend to end the Iraq fiasco, by the way. If we lucked out, we’d be looking at an insane four-year Nixonian “reduction in troop levels” that would probably find us at 2/3 the current troop levels. On foreign policy, Hillary is Bush Lite, and she makes Your Illuminator want a Bud Lite. (Come to think of it, she doesn’t speak a hell of a lot better than Prezboy, either.) She has never once said that she objects to a permanent U.S. occupation, folks. Her rhetoric is carefully couched for all the couch potatoes. She is also a "staunch friend of Israel," which would be fine if it referred to the Israeli people and not the self-defeating policies of the Israeli government (which has a real good time spying on its "staunch friend," the USA, let us remember.)

Then there is this rather looming question, a question that comes into the door uninvited when you're not looking, steals your food, gets drunk, and passes out on your couch, emitting gas: does anybody really want the Clintons back in the White House? I mean, Repugnicans want them the way bull terriers want mailman legs. And that sure can’t be good for uh, “bipartisanship.” Do you want to spend four more years reading more Repugnican claims about the villainous, traitorous Clintons? Not me!

You know, to hell with policy wonkmanship. Hell with Hillary’s vaunted “3 a.m. phone call” capability. Why does everyone think a nuclear attack will come at 3 a.m., anyhow? What’s wrong with 9 a.m.? Or even early afternoon? Hell with “experience," Lamplighter could throw a White House dinner, too, and eavesdrop on cabinet meetings. The only experience she should be touting is her Senate service.

Oh, you’re one of those terrified of terrorist boogiemen? You want Da-Da to protect you? I’ll repeat the basic Rip Post line here: modern terrorism has existed for decades; the Bush Administration did absolutely nothing to secure the country despite dire warnings from intelligence agencies and the Clinton Administration of an impending terrorist attack (draw your own conclusions); the Bush Administration has done nothing to increase security other than to make it difficult for WWII veterans to take their Purple Hearts on to airplanes (weapons, you see); terrorism is as inevitable as the weather; Iraq has exponentially increased---not decreased---the number of would-be terrorists who hate the United States.

Oh, you’re one of those who thinks we should stay in Iraq? I’ll repeat The Rip Post line here: our stupid purpose was to find WMD and depose Saddam, and seeing as there were no WMD and we deposed (and hanged) Saddam. . .mission accomplished! Oh, but what about all the military bases we’ve built there, and our multi-billion dollar fortress “embassy?” Well, you see, that is evidence of what any thinking/reading person knew before the attack: that this was a permanent occupation on behalf of oil, Israel, and USA hegemony, and all the reasons given were lies. If you want a permanent occupation, vote for McCain and continue to destroy the U.S. economy, morale and reputation---and up the risk of world war.

Obama says---says---that he wants to take Iraq dough and pump it into the starving schools in this country---in the black, white, latino, etc. “communities.” Good idea! Funny how that’s considered idealism. He wants to end the occupation. Good idea! But wouldn’t Iraq collapse? Well, let it collapse! It was never a country except through totalitarianism. Ever been to Iraq? Is it one of the United States? What do you care about Iraq? Oh, won’t "Al-Qaeda" then use it as a “base of operations?” If only things were that John Wayne simple. Iraqis don’t want "Al-Qaeda," whatever "Al-Qaeda" is (anyone can call himself a member) any more than Bush does. The assaults against U.S. troops have come from “insurgents” (read: Saddam loyalists, and representatives of the 70 percent---seventy percent---of Iraqis who want Yankee to go home.)

Is Obama a foreign policy naïf? Yupsy-wupsy. He gave an incredibly blunderbuss answer to the Tim Russert question about Al-Qaeda taking over if the U.S. departs---something about “taking appropriate action.” In over his head? Drowned in a bog like a dog on a log. No president will be able to easily pull the plug on Iraq, anyhow. Think Congress would go along with everything Obama wants? Sure, and elected officials will also stop frolicking with hookers.

Some choices!

GOOD O-MAN
Your Illuminator has to say that he brightened a bit by some of the things that the O-man said in his big race speech the other day. First, it was extremely refreshing to hear a politician stand by a "controversial" friend, when most would instantly cut and run, out of that rampant mental disorder, polpollophobia (pols' fear of polls.)

No, in Obama's shoes, most other candidates would have disowned Rev. Jeremiah Wright faster than Diebold changes a vote count. But Obama stood by his longtime friend, while denouncing his "God damn America" remarks and his laying the blame for 9/11 on Lady Liberty. O-man should have done the same for Samantha Power, his foreign affairs expert who was ditched overnight for calling Hillary a "monster." (Pretty mild stuff, compared with a pastor telling a congregation, "God Damn America.")

It was, as all the TeeVee Punditmannequins are noting, a remarkably candid and straightforward speech about racial problems in this country, and the O-man deserves tremendous credit for that. He is to be lauded for noting that anger is understandable from blacks, and from whites, and making the bullseye observation that the country goes nowhere unless the anger subsides. But to compare it with King's "Dream" speech (or any other of the lesser known, but equally compelling King speeches) is ignorant media pronouncement that relegates history to nothing but a video soundbite competition.

As for Wright, when you get down to it, what is really wrong with saying "God damn America?" How often do you curse Washington in far stronger language, folks? This is free speech, after all, right? Well, as Obama suggested, what's wrong with it is that it inflames hatred and anger---in this case, among the already extremely resentful black American populace---and that is exactly the opposite job of any pastor, minister, rabbi, priest, cleric. Or should be. Rev. Wright wronged his flock.

It gets to the core of a problem that the O-man did not (could not?) address pointedly, and that is how bogus much---not all--of contemporary black American anger is. By that, LL means this: no country in the history of the world has done more to redress racial injustice than the United States. No country has passed more legislation to punish any/all race-based hatred and prejudice. (Who says you can't legislate morality?) Affirmative Action has for decades greased the way into higher education for millions of African-Americans who would not otherwise have had a chance. It has done the same in industry. Never mind that this flew in the face of promoting/hiring/rewarding the most qualified person. Such was the sacrifice this country---the whole country!---was willing to make in order to help minorities out.

Pretty impressive. You're welcome, black America!

Yet to consider the massively, colossally influential black popular culture of the last 30 years---chiefly rap and hip-hop, and the attitudes these things have spurred---you would think that slavery is still taking place. Listen to the "gangstas" rapping about "niggahz" and "white boy" this and "white boy" that. It's just beyond horror. These "superstar" narcissist punks degrade themselves, their history, their community, and the martyrdom of Dr. Martin Luther King. (Do you imagine that he would appreciate black Americans calling one another "niggah?") These dawgs and G's, in short, foment racism. That's right, there is no force that has stoked racial animosity more in this country in the last 30 years than rap and hip-hop lyrics, videos (and I must also include a nod to universities, which are replete with classes promulgating the image of the USA as a racist nation.) How ironic that this would happen after the sacrifices and civil rights marches of the sixties that paved the way for equal rights legislation.

I'm sorry, but those people didn't march---and die---for Snoop Dogg.

The result: many young African-Americans have grown up believing the country to be racist and evil, that whites are to be distrusted, disdained, ridiculed---and if they so much as raise an eyebrow at you, hated. Modern black popular culture, with its widespread paranoiac, racist attitudes, has done more to harm American race relations than anything since the KKK.

Yes, yes, racial prejudice and discrimination exist. Always have, always will. It's human nature, and no ethnic group is exempt from being perpetrators, and victims. That's beside the point. Racism is an abiding phenomenon for all humanity---never mind that scientists have demonstrated through DNA match that race is genetically meaningless. The point is that "God Damn America" has done more to legally combat racism, and to help its minorities, than any country, ever.

One can only wonder if the reason, rationality, and eloquence of a President Obama---let alone the symbolism of his election---will have any impact on the poisonous hatred and victim-complex that has come to inculcate black America.

O WELL. . .
Barack Obama has an edge in the prez campaign because he's black? So said former veep candidate Geraldine Ferraro, who was promptly pilloried by Hillary---well, not quite. Hillary "rejected" the assertion made by the lower half of the Mondale ticket---but that wasn't good enough for the O-man. Neither was Ferraro's resignation from an honorary advisory post with the Clinton campaign. Nope, Oprah-bama used lots of soft language like "wrong-headed" to dismiss Geraldine's observation, and laughed as he told various TeeVee Newsmannequins how being (well, half) black and bearing the name Barack Obama could hardly be considered an advantage.

How disingenuous can you get, Barry? Let's say there was a massive Eskimo population in the country, comparable to the number of African-Americans. O-kay? Let's say that along came a (well, half) Eskimo-American candidate named Aglakti Biisaiyowaq. Okay, let's make it simpler: Aga Akiak. (look the names up---they have nice meanings.) Let's say that Akiak had policies and rhetoric that happened to have a very broad appeal, and that he had a great knack for public speaking and making people feel good. Great numbers of people who were not Eskimos.

And then let's say that because Akiak was also the very first Eskimo-American to have a real shot at the presidency, this inspired almost all other Eskimo-Americans to vote for him. This would give a candidate who already had broad across-the-board appeal a massive numerical advantage, would it not? An advantage based mostly on race?

Ah, but you can't say that in The United States of Political Correctness. You can't make any observations about race in this country without being called a racist. And who is calling whom racist here? Hint: it is not Ferraro.

O, give us a break.

WAR ON TERROR?
START HERE
War on Terror? Sure. You bet. Fight the terrorists. Eradicate them. No mercy. Lamplighter is all for it. One caveat: let's start at home. As in Homie.

The other day a nice kid named Jamiel Shaw was gunned down. He was black, a star running back at L.A. High, with a mom serving as a soldier in Iraq. He was on his cell phone in South L.A., near his home, when a car full of latino gang members pulled up, asked him if he belonged to a gang, then shot him to death.

Shaw was 17 with sports scholarship offers probable from Stanford. He was talking to his girlfriend when he was murdered.

A few weeks ago there was a small war in Glassell Park, a lovely old L.A. district long infected with gang vermin. Middle of the day, bullets flying, in the end one "gangbanger" killed while holding his two-year-old granddaughter.

The Glassell Park neighborhood is an infamous latino gang stronghold going back at least 50 years. It's a Mexican Mafia hub, a virtual clearing house for money laundering and drugs shipped from south of the border. Everyone in the area knows it. Everyone in the LAPD knows it.

Your Illuminator spoke with a law enforcement official from the state of California who specializes in dealing with gangs. A real gritty type who gets down and dirty with these people, and has dispatched a few to the big barrios and ghettos in the sky, Official made this off-the-record comment about Glassell Park, and the latino gang situation in general:

"Mexican Mafia controls it all. Always has. Always will."

So you see that law enforcement operates with a feeling of, oh, call it futility. They roll into areas like Glassell Park periodically, make "gang sweep" arrests of five, ten, twenty, thirty monsters, only to have their places quickly filled by others, etc. Never ends.

It need not be this way.

Diverting the War on Terror is the way to deal with it. All studies, LAPD gang squads, sweeps---they never work. Never. Gangs are, after all, terrorists, and they are thriving in just about every major city in the country.

Here's what to do:

Take Glassell Park, for example. Go into that stinking, festering pocket of savagery---with the U.S. military. Occupy the neighborhood. Shut it down. Arrest every gang member in the vicinity, and ship them off not to jail, but to Gitmo. No trial, no nothing. Indefinite "detention." Hand out some relocation dough to the remaining mothers and children, transport them to new housing, and raze the entire neighborhood. Flatten it, clear it out. Build a razor-wire fence around the vacant land, and leave it.

Do this everywhere and anywhere this sort of criminality exists. Gang warfare threatens civilization itself, and it has been tolerated much too long. Maybe this will also stop the media from glorifying it in popular culture.

Fascism? Violation of "civil rights?" You bet. What rights should murderers, money-launderers, drug-runners have?

Yes, saintly Father Gregory Boyle has the best idea. His Homeboy Industries has offered a near-miraculous, constructive way for gang members to get out of their vile "lifestyle" and live like human beings. Problem is, Father Boyle is not mayor, or governor, or president. Problem is, government never works as imaginatively, compassionately, intelligently, as Father Boyle does.

Celeste Fremon, who does the Witness L.A. blog, and who focused attention on the fiendish, beastly murder of Jamiel Shaw, suggests this:

"The harder thing will be to work form the political will to address this complex mess called gang violence at its core—which every study in the last 20 years has made clear is a task cannot be done solely through law enforcement. We need to address the fifty-percent and above inner city school drop out rate, the lack of jobs, the fact that a third of LA’s kids living in high gang areas have worse levels of PTSD than soldiers returning from Fallujah."

She's right, but none of this will solve the problem. None of this will loosen the Crips' grip, or the Mexican Mafia's hold, or end the media-hyped allure of "gangsta" life, in neighborhoods across the country. Won't happen, Ms. Fremon. Ever.

Fascism is the way to go. Bush had it right, but he had the wrong target in mind.

MARGARET SELTZER
---MY HERO!
You know all about it by now. A white Sherman Oaks woman who graduated from an exclusive private school faked an autobiography of a south L.A. girl who grew up with gangs and deprivation.

Margaret Seltzer concocted the story of Margaret B. Jones, part white, part Native-American, victim of sexual assault, placed in foster homes. Winds up living with "Big Mom," hard-working black woman raising four grandkids. Joins the Bloods, lives the "gangsta" life.

Bravo, Meg! You're my hero. Well, almost. You would have been my hero had you not taken the sorryass cop-out about trying to generate sympathy for the real Margaret B. Jones-es out there. Really lame, Meg. Really stupid.

What you should have said was this:

"Yes, I wrote it, and I faked it. Why? Because it's the only way to get anything published anymore! You could write like Steinbeck or Hemingway, and all these pompous bitchy agents and publishers (most of whom are women!) wouldn't give you the time of day. But if you write something about depravity---something involving racial identity (preferably mixed, so as to have that trendy element of being being "psychologically conflicted"), sexual abuse, murder, gangs---you're a shoo-in! My book proves it! Critics were all over it like white housewives on Oprah!"

Well, Meg didn't say any of that---I did. And it's absolutely true. Write about this sort of subject, and publication and great reviews are in the bag, baby. Consider: the "Jones" editor at Riverhead Press never even bothered to meet "Jones," and took her at her word that she was who she represented herself to be---in three years of e-mail and phone conversation. Three years! One chuckles, thinking of Seltzer adopting black patois and urban accent in those phone chats. . .

Said the Riverhead Dunderhead publisher, Sarah McGrath:

"It's very upsetting to us because we spent so much time with this person and felt such sympathy for her and she would talk about how she didn't have any money or heat and we completely bought into that."

And why did you buy into it, Sarah? Because you smelled money. The nicest spin one can put on this is that you are of the ilk that believes that this sort of claptrap is "important literature." But I'll stick with venality. Does it not occur to those (monied white) publishers that they are profiting (profiteering?) from the tragedy of others?

But back to the book. Lamplighter has long, long, long (George Harrison) talked of faking a book, and one of these days, he just might do it. Asian chic is big, so maybe a half-Chinese, half-latina. . .who returns to her old 'hood after earning a degree in oh, "human resources," then throws her career away by murdering her father over incest. . .beats the rap and becomes a beloved talk show host. . .is elected a U.S. senator. . .eventually is exposed in massive corruption scandal involving Indian reservations and dwarves. . .returns to her 'hood, finds Jesus, becomes a nun, commits suicide. . .Yes! Yes!

Then maybe I'll get reviews like the one Los Angeles Times book reviewer Susan Salter Reynolds gave to Seltzer's fake autobiography, praising "her loyalty to the language, the sense of community, the tight bonds she formed with her gang."

What a racket. What a world. I repeat: John Steinbeck would collect dozens of rejection letters today from these sorry vragos who call themselves agents and publishers.

Seltzer, at least, has demonstrated that.

ABOUT THE O-MAN
Let's talk about Barry Obama. He sounds good. He looks good. He says the right things about everything that is so horrifically screwed up in this country. He espouses empathy, he inspires optimism. Hillary Clinton seems pathologically unable to say anything compelling, unless your idea of fun is reading government reports. On paper, Barry's general philosophy dovetails neatly with Lamplighter's.

But. . .It's all happy talk. How will the O-man deal with, for example, the corporate tyranny that is bleeding the country dry? Well, he says he will sit around a big table with heads of industry and talk to them. Yeah. Good luck with that, Barry. Then there is his health care plan, which covers kids nicely. Yet Clinton's plan would cover kids---and their moms and dads. That's a rather major distinction, yet the blissed out Obama crowd doesn't care. "He inspired me!" they will tell you, their chins wet with drool.

And everyone (especially Hillary) seems to have forgotten that Barry announced a few months back that he would just blunderbuss his way right into Pakistan to chase any no-good terrorist meanie---whether Pakistan likes it or not. Umm. . .Barry baby! Pakistan has about 50 nukes, and missiles with a range of a thousand miles or so. Pakistan is just thisclose to being in the hands of U.S.-hating Islamicist maniacs, who comprise the majority of the population. It was widely and credibly reported that the Bush Administration allowed Bin Laden to escape across the Pakistan border rather than run the risk of destabilizing the country, and thus putting nukes into the hands of the Taliban. A rare sane move from George and Dick and Rummy and Condi. But Barry said he would just roar in there like Indiana Jones, and let the nukes fall where they may. We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when. . .Sing with me now. . .

Then we have judgment, or lack of same. In any political race, it might seem infantile to focus on matters of ethics, given the sordid, corrupt creeps who generally hold office in this country, but. . .Barry did buy that mansion in Chicago with massive help from Antoin "Tony" Rezko (heh), knowing full well that Rezko was under heavy investigation by the federal government (and since indicted.) Fact. This is just bad judgment---very bad judgment---and Obama's public admission that it was a "mistake" is cold comfort. It would appear that wifey-poo was putting the squeeze on Barry for a new nest, and the O-man caved. Reckless, weak, greedy, any way you cut it. You want a guy with this sort of decision-making history in the White House?

And speaking of reckless, there is the not insignificant matter of plagiarism. Sure, it's being brushed off by "pundits" everywhere, and Obama showed more unfortunate smartass tendencies by quipping that Clinton has borrowed some of his words lately. (She lamely appropriated his lame declaration, "I'm fired up!) But facts are facts. Obama used, just about verbatim, a section of a speech by his friend, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. He did not credit Patrick (later saying that he "should have." Yup.) What's wrong here? Well, for starters, can't he write his own stuff? Or have his speechwriters write his own stuff? Why was there any need to borrow material from another source at all? And then pass it off as his own? Which is just what he did. This is unethical, thoughtless, deceptive, and. . .reckless. Serious business, folks.

Then we have the racial aspect of this thing. Obama is unanimously cast as a "black" and "African-American" candidate, and African-Americans are voting for him in record numbers, obviously because he is black. Except. . .he isn't. He is half-black. He is as white as he is black. Why not call him "white?" It's just as accurate. Half-Asian kids I know do not call themselves Asian-American. Half-Latino kids I know don't call themselves latino. Except, probably when it is advantageous on a school or job application. What we really have here, with the O-man, is "other." He is Other-American. What irks here is how Barry's persona shifts into "black" mode when he speaks before black crowds. Watch. You'll see. He exploits it. And remember his (smartass) remark about Bill Clinton needing to dance in order to definitively determine if "he is a brother." That's at least crass, and at most racist. Imagine if this was said of a black man by a white man. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be out for blood.

Lamplighter thinks Obama would cast a great deal more light by playing down the whole race angle. After all, O-man's major motif is to unite the country, generate empathy, and quell all the racial/political/social antipathy. Yet he freely works the (half) black aspect. Well, doesn't he have a right to do this, seeing as it is part of his heritage? Perhaps. But there is far too much in the way of defining oneself according to one's ethnicity and race (and religion) in this country, and Obama could be making a strong statement against that, implicitly or otherwise. LL, frankly, has had quite enough of African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Asian-Americans, white Americans, Gay Americans, etc., and thinks the country would do much better to get back to just using the term, "Americans."

And we cannot ignore the O-woman. That's Oprah. The Antarctic-sized ego of this intellectually lightweight megalomaniac billionairess is now about the size of the planet, since her annointment of Barry. She can't believe it. She is actually a kingmaker, or at least a would-be one. Little Oprah from the backwoods is hepin' to pick a prez-dent, girlfriend! LL admits no objectivity here, finding Oprah to be a fabulously narcissistic, morally repugnant creature masquerading as something quite the opposite. And buffaloing dunderhead Housewife-Americans into buying it. Oprah sez: buy this book! They buy. Oprah sez: vote for Barry "because he's brrrrrrillllliant!" (as she likes to scream.) They vote. (Uh, Nixon was brilliant, too.) I understand the power of endorsements, and the O-man is not to be faulted for playing Oprah's lapdog for a while, at various private fundraiser parties attended by the Rich and Famous, but the idea of this venal celeb queen having access to---and influence with---the President of the United States, well, it's deeply revolting. Time for O-man to divorce O-woman.

Finally, there is something unsettling about Barry's public persona. The way he works a crowd. It's just too damn slick for LL's taste. Someone shouts "I love you," and he winks, "Love ya back!" (Pee Uke!) His ad nauseum refrain of "I'm having a conversation with the American people" just sounds so grandiloquent. Where's the humility? Where's the playing down of "me" in all this? Eh, Barry? Where? (Hint: don't ask your wife, who says a vote for you is a vote to change the world.)

In the end, Your Illuminator hates to say this, but the O-man has a number of troubling things about him: reckless decision-making, reckless pronouncements, shaky ethics, opportunistic posing, pretty but insubstantial rhetoric. And you know, it's true he voted against giving Bush the power to invade Iraq---and then voted repeatedly to fund the most disastrous adventure in vainglory and hegemony in American history. Where was the principle in that? Did he not want the appearance of "not supporting the troops?" LL doesn't know. It's troubling. (Though admittedly, not nearly as troubling as Hillary voting to give Bush the power to "shock and awe.")

We are left with the hope that, in the likely event that Obama is swept into the White House on a tide of "inspiration," he has to rise to the occasion and try to make good on all the pretty speeches.

GREEN CROTCH
It's become much too easy for Lamplighter to take swipes at the Los Angeles Times, but that's the paper's tough luck. The latest atrocity, which must horrify even the most lightweight Times staffers, is the green crotch blog.

Yes, it is well known that many papers are ham-handedly trying to "compete with the web" by appropriating popular local blogs. For those who don't know what a blog is, this is an Internet forum in which the puerile indulge and aggrandise their egos by dithering about things they find "cool." Cool being the absolute determining measure of all worth in the universe. Well, I exaggerate. There are many articulate, incisive, well-written, and useful blogs. Well, I exaggerate. There are more than ten.

Anyhow, in its uptight, receding hairlined, fat-assed Midwest corporate grope for bucks, the LAT is paying real dollars to blogging little boys and girls who type up their teeny-tiny blurts for like-"minded" little boys and girls. Translation: the LAT is buying up blogs and running them under its august masthead.

Which brings us back to the green crotch.

Something called "Siel" who types extensively about the state of her large intestine and how much booze she ingests, has posted a dither about spotting her "girlfriend's" bikinied crotch on another blog called "Treehugger." She carries on with high excitement about the crotch, as if it is the focus of enormous importance in her life. Well, it probably is (sigh.) Anyhow, the Times posted it, slapped on this "headline:" "Greenest Crotch in the Blogosphere."

Does this just make you want to hide? Not admit to cats and dogs that you are human?

No, no, it's not that the subject matter is um, racy, of course. It's not that at all. It's that this reads like the Ritalin-deprived chatter of a six-year-old, and has less content than a porn script. But chances are, "Siel" (just how much is she paid, I'd like to know) is a marketing/demographics type's wet dream. A creature of and tapped deeply into the minds (and crotches) of similarly feral adult children.

It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for the Times.

But not quite.

It's also enough to inspire some highly intelligent and well-written blogging by one Shel Holz, which you may read here.

MIGHTY OAKES
To lighten things up for one and all as this glorious new year begins, here is a breezy little note from our resident poet laureate and lantern-lighter, Jack Oakes:

Arnold has been doing Fascism's work ever since becoming governor. That's what is behind the idea that government is bad and taxes are evil. Except they've turned state and federal government into their personal ATMs, engineering it as a profit scam, like everything else they touch, from the war on down. The whole deficit thing is scam engineered to further screw over California.

BEAM-OF-THE-YEAR
Once in far too great a while, a story comes along that is so amazing, so wonderful, so surprising, that it almost---almost---starts to restore a slight hint of admiration for human beings. It almost---almost---makes you forget about all the stuff that TeeVee Newsmannequins and Oprah and Bush insist are soooooo important. From the valley of Vulchiusella in Turin in northern Italy comes this story of a fellow who had a little idea, and saw it through. Talk about shining light in a dark place. . .Oberto Airaudi gets the Lamplighter Beam-of-the-Year Award. Thank you, Oberto.

PHOTOS DON'T LIE: GIULIANI IS DISTANT RELATIVE OF NOSFERATU!

In this exclusive photographic comparison, Lamplighter demonstrates what most thinking people already know: Rudy "The Creep" Giuliani is actually a vampire. While it is not unusual to find vampires in politics, it is notable that Giuliani bears a striking resemblance to Nosferatu. The man for whom 9/11 is the blood of life has so far refused DNA tests.

AW, PEANUTS!
Lamplighter's bulb dimmed while watching the "American Masters" PBS documentary on Charles Schulz. For it seems as if the producers were intent on dimming the history of Schulz himself, by playing up all the "troubled" and "psychologically complex" side of the creator of the most beloved comic strip in history. Who is not complex? Who among us understands why we do what we do? I mean, really. Yes, it was salient and interesting to learn that Schulz lost his mother early, and that little emotion was expressed in his Midwest German-American stock family, and that a real "little red-headed girl" once rejected him. But you came away from this "portrait" feeling very sorry for a man who seemed imprisoned by gnarled, repressed feelings that he could only express by through the almost obsessive-compulsive habit of drawing "Peanuts." Feh. No one, and nothing, is so simple. He liked to draw cartoons! He also was a bit of a student of the human condition.

LL later learned that two of Schulz's daughters refused to participate in the program, and that the family in general feels that the "dramatic" was emphasized in the documentary, to the neglect of the more biographical (let alone the happier aspect.) One bit of biography that was so neglected that it did not even appear was the fact that Schulz served as an army staff sergeant during WWII---something of which he was extremely proud. And another "little" omission: Schulz was also quite proud of having created the first black character in an American comic strip (not based on unfortunate stereotype): Franklin.

While the show cleverly blended real-life events into Peanuts panels, the conclusion went for the maudlin---showing various cutouts of Linus, Lucy, and the rest. . .disappearing with Schulz's passing. If there are any characters in the history of comic strips, if not Americana in general, that will never, never fade away, Charlie Brown and the rest of the "Peanuts" gang are them.

FRANKLY SPEAKING
Your Illuminator was palavering with Rip Post Poet Laureate Jack Oakes the other day, expressing his oft-felt wish that the late Frank Zappa was still around to try to make sense of the horrors of the day (many of which he predicted.) Mr. Oakes, a hobbyist student of Buddhist philosophies, responded thusly:

"It falls to folks like us to fight off the veil of toxic cobwebs that envelopes us as the world chokes in its own filth.

"Maybe the answer is rigorous Zen-like work and to be activist creators, not pacified consumers.

"Problem with Buddhist stuff is that people get so wrapped up in it that it becomes their narcotic. The point of Buddhism is to be in the now. But the "now" is such a very rich and multifacted wonderland that it's easy to wander off any old rabbit hole on looking glass.

"But for many people the 'now' sucks major league. So they want to be somebody else and somewhere else. That's the hook of the consumerist/capitalist society. You suck, buy our product and we'll make you king of all you survey. That dynamic has scoured out most vestiges of good and kindly fellow feeling or compassion.

"Free-minded and free-hearted people are not tolerated in the corporate commons. We're getting fenced out at every turn. I don't want to be a fascist, mama. For whatever reason, Zappa was a natural anti-fascist.

"Down deep, we all have the ability to savvy what goes down. But along the way, we wind up eating so much shit that we become corrupted as well, and thus powerless, if not outright insane

"So if there are channels by which we can get back to the basics and cleanse ourselves of the toxic overburden of culture and conditioning, there's hope we can become something more than zombie fools."

LL is not so sure he shares Mr. Oakes's optimism---no, actually, he is sure that he does not share Mr. Oakes's optimism. Most people are simply helpless against the corporate media enslaught of pseudo-reality. They buy it, and into it, and believe that cars and trucks and The Bachelor and American Idol and Rich Dad infomercials and whatever is sanctioned as "cool" by Pope Capitalist Amok I is the real deal. And kids coming up these days are even more feral than current generations of tattooed Self Monsters. Check out this Mark Morford column on the subject.

And yet, as FZ liked to say:

“My theory is you have to do two things. One, you don’t stop, and two, you keep going.”

To which Oakes added:

"Frank was fortunate to have been able to make his own way and to succeed. It didn't seem like a struggle for him. He found his vision and off he went. Magnificent! Somebody should do a biography of who he was, not a litany of what notes he played, where and when. A meditation on the meaning of Frank and his music. He was a great man. A beacon of how to live free in the modern age."

FIRED
We have four seasons here in Lost Angeles: light summer, nearly summer, summer, and fire. We are now in, and on, fire. Those who have grown up here are used to this sort of thing: the limp, orangish light and hint of charred chapparal in the air over the L.A. basin in autumn. New England can rhapsodize all it wishes about how all the fall trees look as if they are on fire---here, we've got the real deal. There's sizzle in the L.A. autumnal steak.

It is also, of course, the season of the relentlessly babbling TV Newsmannequin. They stream an endless loop of cliches and "unfortunately" and "sadly" and "tragically" and somehow never cover the story. Imagine Chick Hearn "calling the action" of a fire, and you get the idea of how it could and should be. It seems that reporters and Anchormannequins are so used to seeing mayhem and horror in the news and in the finest family entertainment, that they no longer have any real perspective on describing actual destruction. "Oh, here's another house on fire. Another sad story," drones Generic Anchorboy/girl. What of statistics? What of comparing these fires with past years' fires? Is the increase in annual fire a yield of global warming, as scientists have predicted? If the Santa Anas kick up as they did last Sunday, would embers be carried throughout the Valley, the L.A. basin, San Gabriel Valley? What of hard news instead of camera pointing and maudlin, "Oh, another tragedy in the making" blather? Gad.

Fire them all.

SPEECH OF THE CENTURY
You will not see a finer, more important speech than this one, delivered in 1992 by 13-year-old Severn Suzuki to a U.N. gathering. It's the speech of the decade, if not the century. She gets the Lamplighter Award for Burning Brightest. And she's still at it today.

FLASH! SARCASM AT THE L.A. TIMES? IT CAN'T BE!

There must be something in the newsprint at the L.A. Times, that's all LL can figure. It must contain drugs that rub off on the fingers of staffers and get into their bloodstream. I mean, how else do you explain that almost every single person Your Illuminator has ever met at that "great newspaper" is just a wee bit, oh, regal? Right down to the secretaries and telephone operators? Eh?

LL recalls a nice guy, a former colleague, who was hired at the LAT long ago. Nice Guy went from blue jeans, floppy hair, ready smile, smoking dope to. . .sharp suits, spiffy 'do, rigid chin and declarations of "I work with a lot of very impressive people, very impressive." Pee Yoo.

Anyhow, the latest Times reeking ego wafts from the resignation memo of assistant managing editor Janet Clayton, and it may be read in full here. Among other things, Ms. Clayton makes such grand pronouncements as "as Freud supposedly said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar---sometimes things really are what they seem." This is her jaunty way of explaining that there is nothing hidden in her departure---that she simply "yearns to try something new" after 30 years of (get this) "serving the high calling of daily journalism."

Yearns? Yearns? Last time LL heard "yearns" was in that Seinfeld episode where Kramer asks George if he yearns. "Do I yearn?" says George, incredulously. Oh, let's clutch our little hands to our bosom, and yearn!

As for the "high calling" of daily journalism, quick, cue the music. Gad. These people all imagine they work in the Vatican. The whole problem with journalism is self-serious, pompous jackasses who think they are serving a "high calling." God Almighty, give that woman cigar and a spitoon.

There's plenty more, but nothing as good as this: "I have been privileged to work with scores of you over the years, chasing stories, making sarcastic jokes, working elections all night, crafting editorials that we knew would irk a wayward politician, getting a juicy tip that leads to a blockbuster series."

Oh, my! How wild and wooly! How rock-'em, sock-'em! Imagine---making "sarcastic jokes" in a newsroom! Oh, does life get any more outrageous than that? Gosh! Sarcasm in a newspaper. That's so daring! (Well, I guess I should be glad to hear this, seeing as the San Francisco Chronicle actually banned sarcasm in its newsroom a couple years ago.) And---hold on to your hats, boys and girls---Ms. Clayton "crafted" editorials (a woman like her doesn't merely write, you see) that would "irk" a "wayward politician."

Get LL some smelling salts! It's too much! The idea that a newspaper would try to "irk" a politician! No! It can't be. It's just too unthinkable! No wonder Los Angeles has such great public servants---the LAT keeps "irking" them so they perform better. That must be why we have no traffic or density problems here!

As for "juicy tip" and "blockbuster series," let's call in the Lifeless Cliche Police. Oh, there's more of Clayton's sillyass note, but we're too "irked" to continue. Not to worry---she'll be replaced by another Times ego-zombie who "yearns" to "craft editorials" and make "sarcastic jokes." Maybe that old dope-smoking colleague of mine.

BRILLIANT SUMMATION!
"It's true, the truth will set you free/ but it also builds your cage," the poet wrote, and in that spirit, Lamplighter brings you this brilliant summation, courtesy of Rip Post Resident Poet Jack Oakes:

For Middle Americans, we are all living in New Orleans before Katrina. Comes a big storm, we'll be ruined, in terms of finance and physical and mental health.

Meanwhile, and as society slowly deteriorates, negative and even dangerous, encounters are on the upswing. And the background noise of a society with no decency at its core, grind us down in innumerable ways on a daily basis.

For lower-class Americans, they have scant hope.

For the rich, they feast on our souls.

PICTURES DON'T LIE!

Rondo, Rupert
Here it is---indisputable evidence that Media Tyrant and all-around world class fiend Rupert Murdoch is related to the late, great actor, Rondo Hatton. Of course, Rondo's ugliness was confined to the exterior, due to illness, whereas Rupert manifests natural grotesqueness inside and out!

COOL STUFF!
Well, those words seem to be the best way to get the attention of most fine American citizens these days, so who is Lamplighter to ignore a good angle? Besides, what follows is much cooler stuff than most of the cool stuff that people watch/buy/eat/wear/drive. Here's the dope: Your Illuminator received an e-mail from someone who burns far more brightly even than himself. A fine fellow currently attempting to improve the consumer-diseased minds of young Americans attending college. He will be known here as Anonymous, in order that he might keep his job.

Following is an exchange between His Brightness and Anonymous, the coolest stuff you will encounter today. Why, it even has that cool e-mail lack of capital letters!

Anon.: hey. i've been meaning to write, what's been stopping me is that i didn't have a whole lot to say. but since that doesn't stop most people, i decided to join the club. after reading the latest Riposte ("notes from the terrace") latest article, it struck me that you thought the real culprit was the media / culture that's landed us in a rather alienating and frightening place where raw reality is obfuscated by a distorting mediation -- either a camera lens or a veil of passive vocabulary -- that ends up making things look far, far away.

LL: Yes! Splendidly stated.

Anon: i agree and i wanted to add that i suspect, for the newest of our community members, the least real will become the most real: the virtual community will become the real community. absent inhibition and immediate social pressures, online communities will become forums for the truest mode of self-presentation...

LL: Brilliant. “Absent inhibition and immediate social pressures.” That’s it, isn’t it. . .That’s the crux. The Internet renders these things moot at best. Gives people full license to ignore them, and then, as you note, the “newest community members” have no inkling that these important and hard-won bulwarks of simple civilized behavior ever existed. “What are you, feral?” as Letterman asked the girl who grunted in response to his, “Good morning.” Everything is artificial: the “world” as presented by (created by) the media, and the “community” as facilitated by the Internet.

Anon: and as such they will become associated with "who we really are". our children will hide themselves behind "fine" and "whatever" only to open themselves up to a near-anonymous community of strangers, where they will feel comfortable to reveal their deepest emotions and thoughts.

LL: “Dear Diary” to Internet strangers, but purest suspicion to most human beings encountered during the course of a day. The “who we really are” term is key, also, isn’t it. I cannot, for instance, look at television news anymore, as it is a completely faked and posed reality that has nothing to do with. . .real events. Except as it renders them entertaining, and packages them for convenient consumption. But for most people in this country, anyhow, TV and Internet-produced reality is “who we really are.” Not me, not me.

Anon: "go to your room" used to be a sanction where we were punished by being isolated from others, soon the dinner table will become the space of ostracism.

LL: Ha! Probably already is---in the homes where there are still dinners and tables.

Anon: ironically, the vt shooter foreshadowed this crime as well, which i think will ultimately be as harmful to our communities as a whole: he retreated from human forms of interaction to express his true self in videos and online chats.

LL: Sure, that was Cho’s entire reward---telling the entire world, “f--- you” on the evening news and the Internet---ad infinitum. He bought a piece of eternity, via web infamy. He’s an icon now. Yet the gnarled, psychologically disfigured little boy had a point in deriding the decadence and excess of the rich and privileged. This country and its children are seriously debauched, spectacularly oblivious to and unappreciative of their wealth and freedom. Same Ugly American that all the “Islamic fundamentalists” want to slaughter. Oh, well, what a country. We are smothering in ignorance, hatred, paranoia, violence. Forgive me if I already sent this to you, but this actually represents the average person in the remains of our country today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE

Anon: did you find it moronic for imus to get fired for a racial/gender slur, when nbc decided to air the vt shooter video only a few days later; a video which included a call to arms by the shooter? if you watch it, you'll see that he's telling the similarly weak and ostracized to follow his example. baffling.

LL: I did not watch, and I’m not surprised about the “call to arms” for similarly deranged types. TV “news” is all so insane and irresponsible now. Content and its context are largely determined by monetary considerations. And there are “news people” who think they are making brave decisions built on great journalistic integrity by showing Cho---because “he’s news.” Well, there are times to get beyond this sort of Journalism 101 thinking. There are times to make decisions based on concern for the community, social responsibility---but then, TV creates the community nowadays, as you suggest. Imus was a jackass, but not because he said “nappy headed ho’s,” of course. He was always a jackass. For him to have become famous in the first place was moronic. Stern said the same kind of stuff constantly, every rapper uses this hideous lingo as a matter of course. It’s political correctness and racism---open season on “whitey” and “gringo” (thank you, Hugo Chavez) for the media-annointed black gods, Jackson and Sharpton. And yes, your point is well taken: NBC airs Cho saying things that are light-years more vile and destructive than anything ever to emerge from the mouth of Don Imus. . .Race has gone insane as an issue. No one can talk sanely about it, at least publically, without inviting catastrophe. Most of the kids growing up in the last 30 years seem to believe that this is the most repressive and racist society in human history, when in fact it is probably the most free and egalitarian society---at least on paper---that ever existed. The poorest and most ignorant and hateful, racist blacks in the society are exalted as its leading pop stars. Ah, well. . .

Lamplighter here again. Hope you enjoyed the cool stuff above. By the way, Anonymous signed off with "i hope all is well." LL's response to this phrase is:

Well, all is hope.

NEW RULES
In light of (pun intended) all the darkness in the news all the time---Your Illuminator had a dream that he read a headline "Air of Doom All Over Earth"---we hereby propose a few new rules of conduct in our licentious---er, free---society. This came about after reading an article about the horrors of being solicited 5000-plus times each day by phone/TV/radio/computer. It's all part of the psychological squeeze that is accelerating around the globe. Too many rats in a closed-end maze, where the only escape is death (see the Virginia Tech shootings). Wretched excess. The mass stampede into nonsensical religious drek is another result of complusive helplessness, overload, assault on the senses that is Western culture today. And so. . .

Barriers in respect of peoples’ need for psychological protection should be erected. Only a grouped five minutes of commercials an hour, with each commercial at least 30 seconds in length, for both television and radio is an important start. Immediate banning from the airwaves for the telling of any untruth. A ban on student borrowing (with outright grants to replace needed funds) so we stop graduating kids already drowning in debt. A statement of principles to govern the recording industry: no profanity, no rudeness, no debasement of any group or person, no encouragement or glorification of violence. A review panel to govern the credit industry – if the extension of credit was inappropriate under the circumstances, all resulting debt is cancelled. A price cap on automobiles – none to exceed $30,000. A price cap on homes – no home of any sort may be sold for more than $3,000,000. Channel the expression of wealth into just three avenues – jewelry, clothing and weaponry. Require all persons in the bottom ten economic percent of American households to carry firearms at all times. Require all persons in the top three percent to wear signs so stating. Require all persons to wear a sign identifying the last book he/she read and the number of books read in the preceding calendar year. Require all persons regardless of age to pass a basic tap dancing exam within two years of ordinance enactment. Take the foot off the gas pedal, folks.

ON VONNEGUT

Lantern-Lighter Mycroft checks in with this comment about the late Kurt Vonnegut:

"Easily the American writer who best understood and most dearly grieved over the shortcomings of humanity. His perceptual brilliance and preternatural sense of the ironic made his prose a constant revelation – from screamingly hilarious to as depressing as any words ever written. He was the conscience of all humans and like any conscience he was dismissed and resented when the instructions were uncomfortable or unpleasant. One day, after cataclysmic events have laid the world low (even lower than today), he will be grudgingly, ruefully acknowledged as the one person we all should have been paying attention to. That he should be awarded the Nobel and every other prize that honors writers and thinkers is so apparent as to be trivial. He made man simple. But this expressed truth, like most truths, was for most too uncomfortable to bear."

QUOTATIOUS:
"Choose softer paths in all things. Hard times are always ready to pounce and seize us by the throat. Be gone demons, afflict us not, we have gentler matters to attend to. In that, we will find strength to answer the call." ---Jack Oakes.

MYCROFT'S ANALYSIS
Lamplighter's luminary pal, Dave Lindorff, posed a most radiant question for our dark times in a recent column: "Why Hasn't Bush Been Impeached Yet?" We suspect it has something to do with flouride, or UFO's, or Britney Spears, but our occasional correspondent Mycroft has more articulated ideas. Here is his response to Mr. Lindorff:

"When reading your column I was reminded of poor dopey Ralph Nader’s stated position for not withdrawing from the presidential race and throwing his support to Al Gore in the election before last. He said, I believe, in essence that the American public should realize that it does not matter whether the Democrats or Republicans are in the White House – the interests and behaviors they serve and evidence are the same (the interests he believed he was campaigning against by championing the ordinary schmoo).

"I believe this is the reason that an impeachment effort hasn’t been launched. Both parties and virtually all candidates share core value structures – please big money and the wad (Norman Mailer’s term), and big money and the wad loves a war. The Democrats have never been against the war on principal (the only valid reason in my estimation) – anyone with the slightest moral sense knew from the beginning that this was nothing more than outright systematic murder and conquest.

"The Democrats liked the idea of America controlling the world’s oil reserves as much as any hoary Texas Republican, and gave the institutional thumbs’ up to imperial conquest. The fact is that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats (nor the vast majority of the American public) believes that there is anything wrong with using America’s military might to conquer other nations and take their resources, or to impose our nation’s will upon them. Why else have an army?

"This is another engagement of the age-old duel between principal (i.e. the rule of law and reason) and might (I CAN impose my will so I WILL impose my will). Guess which side is winning? Guess which side always wins? Ultimately these politicians are neither “Republicans” nor “Democrats.” They are just people, with all the terrible urges and behaviors of an omnivore that evolved against desperate odds by its extraordinarily enhanced wit. It may be to humankind’s credit that the notion that morality ought to govern one’s actions cropped up some millennia into the evolutionary push toward eating lobster in Martha’s Vinyard, but humankind’s willingness to abandon notions of morality whenever snickeringly convenient (by that I mean at the drop of a proverbial hat) condemns us all.

"America stood on an interesting pedestal immediately following WWII. It seemed that a world-class political and military power whose actions were motivated (well, at least tempered) by principal, rather than by avarice, stood center stage. I believe this was an historic moment.

"Unfortunately America then launched into a series of small wars and skirmishes over the next fifty years that were not motivated solely or even primarily by principal (most by a mix of uncertainty about America’s role in the world, religious fear, the innate corporate profitability of a war – any war – and the possibility of long-term economic / strategic gain). This tarnished the image, but did not destroy it. Then came the invasion of Panama, the political cleansing of Grenada, the renting of our military to Saudi Arabia, the sponsoring of secret wars in Central and South America and, finally, a land grab as bold as any the English, French or Germans ever perpetrated during the heyday of military colonialism. We showed the world the true colors of America, and they are dark and mottled indeed.

"But it is a convenient lie to blame the Republicans or the Neocons for this fall from grace. It is the manifestation of the will, and the amoral indifference, and the overarching greed of virtually all Americans that has brought our nation so low."

Socratic Monologue
Our old lantern-lighter pal, Socrates, checked in with a monologue that was so well-crafted, so finely honed, so finessed and nuanced---and so flourescently important---that your Illuminator decided to give it separate placement. It is entitled, "Old Dogs and Dirty Tricks," and here is the tantalizing first paragraph:

"Washington is abuzz with the winds of change, or so we might wish to believe. Change comes hard for any one, but it is especially hard in the political arena. Particularly if you are the President of the Dis-United States. At what has become perhaps the most perilous moment in our national history, we are at a crossroads where only genuine statesmanship can guide us through to safety and put us back on course as the democratic model for the world to follow - - by choice, not by imposition."

Read all of this marvelous beam of light here.

Room Inn Nations
Lamplighter is so nonplussed---or it it plussed?---about the "Oscars," that his normal loquaciousness is low. But it must be said that all these gushing, barely articulate series of disjointed ejaculations about God and coming from South-Central L.A. and believing in your dream (where are the cliche police!) and so on have got to stop. LL thinks Forrest Whittaker is a superb actor and a stinking lousy speechmaker. Forrest, you have not solved global warming, discovered a cure for AIDS, or removed Bush and Cheney from power. You. . .acted. You. . .won an award. A top award. Well done, but a little humility, please. Same to you, Jennifer Holliday--er, Hudson---and believe me, you need it a lot more than Forrest. By the way, Ellen DeGeneres is every bit as funny as a second-grade teacher talking about milk going up your nose. And Clint, well, Clint, you're gettin' old at last. Greatest injustice of the night: "Pan's Labyrinth" not winning best foreign film. Second greatest injustice of the night: "The Departed" winning anything. There are better Bugs Bunny cartoons. Let Al Gore host next year. . .

In The Snake Eats Itself Department: Toyota is building a new auto assembly plant in Northeast Mississippi. There are at least two interesting things about this. First, the only reason Japanese auto manufacturers assemble cars in the USA is because the Congress years ago passed protective tariffs against Japanese auto imports. The companies beat this by building the cars here, so the tariffs were all rescinded. Second, the USA has a surplus of reasonably intelligent, reasonably hard-working adults in backwaters like Mississippi and other southern and Midwestern states happy to have these stultifying repetitive factory jobs---never mind what Karl "the Pig" Rove said about not wanting his son to pick tomatoes. In other words, we have become a source of reasonably intelligent cheap manufacturing labor, at least compared with the labor pools in Japan and Western Europe. In other words, we have become our own "Third World" country---outsourcing to ourselves! We’ll soon be making tennis shoes and clothing once again.

Question of the day: how many pairs of hands does a female movie star have to pass through before she becomes undesirable as used goods? It seems there is always some itinerant dancer or cinefellow ten or fifteen years younger (either calculating for exposure or who doesn’t know any better) willing to woo even the most tarnished aging divas and over the hill (25+ years) pop tarts. Wonder how Sharon Stone and Christian Slater are doing. . .

WHY DO THE BIRDS GO ON SINGING?*

Now cometh a great big wonderful beaming shaft! Lantern-lighter "Doc" yet again hath come through-eth with an essay guaranteed to drive shadows fleeing. Here it is, kids:

So, brethren and sisthren, it is fear – FEAR, I say – that is the genesis of religion. Fear of the unknown, fear of the known, fear of fear itself. Fear of terrorists, fear of dying, fear of flying. The original fears were probably of earthquakes, volcanoes, too much rain, too little rain, and other entirely inexplicable, uncontrollable natural factors that spelled doom or prosperity for our primitive hunter-gatherer forebears (note well that these remain pretty high on the things-feared-list today, puncturing little intellectual conceits about having de-mystified nature’s arbitrary assaults).

Modern fears are somewhat more varietal. True, the Big Boogaloo - fear of death – lurks behind nearly every manifestation of popular despair we still encounter during our brief mambo with life. Then we move on to the purveyors of oblivion -- starvation, disease, you know, the four horsemen of Apocalypse Now. Finally we end up entwined in pretty silly trivialities: fear of television reruns, fear of the next guy’s different god, fear of wearing the same dress as Dinky Glimp. If one could hear all the prayers for divine assistance in avoiding various types and levels of unpleasantry that waft upward each day, one would have a damned-near complete list of every dark and fearful nook in the human psyche.

And that brings me to my next point. What is the connection between fear and religion? Aha! It is identical to the fundamental principal of capitalism – identify a need, then satisfy it at a substantial profit (or sometimes create a need, then satisfy it, same thing). The elemental human need is two-headed – the need to understand those things we fear (fundamentally, that can kill us)and the need for assistance in avoiding them. Both heads perch on the same body -- The Unknown. You know, “The undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns….”

Now since it was probably pretty clear to even our brooding brow-ridged bipedal ancestors that they certainly didn’t have any answers, the logical thing was to ascribe the reason for such calamities to (and endow the power to stop such calamities in) somebody or something else. But who? But whom? (The grammar god is fickle and aloof.)

The original answer was -- in the very things that were feared. So, in every culture that was subject to volcanoes, you had a volcano god. Where floods were a hazard, you had a rain god. Earthquakes? Create an earthquake god. These fanciful creations satisfied both questions – these special effects gods were understood to be the cause of such seemingly arbitrary and appalling occurrences, and provided a key to avoiding them. Create and placate the right god, and the fire pits would stop firing, the rains would come on time and in moderation, and all would be right with the world.

This is all pretty much hokey dokey! It removed some of our fear by removing some of the unknown – people could understand these anthropomorphic gods they conjured up. They were sort of like us, only (to use the pop jargon) EMPOWERED. And the fancied ability to placate such gods restored a bit of imaginary control to the situation. Nobody got hurt, and everybody felt a little better. Well, except those sacrificed to placate a particular member of the pantheon one’s society venerated. (Funny how virgins seem to have been at the top of everybody’s Sacrificial Top Ten, be they gods of fire or fruitcake. You don’t suppose these societies were male-dominated, do you?) Taking the Big Dive to mollify the God of Large Potatoes must have been a bummer.

Of course, since these gods didn’t really exist, the success of societal adoration and attempted placation were pretty much arbitrary. (I’ve always loved the fact that the Greeks endowed their gods with the very human trait of arbitrariness, to explain why the results of their worship and sacrifices seemed so…arbitrary.) Even so, a little imagined control of the sometimes-dire situation seemed better than none, so even the ficklest of divine creatures and forces didn’t completely l