UNFULPHILLED
So Lamplighter applied for a job recently. Really. I know, I know, you hear Maynard G. Krebs yelling "Work!" in horror, in your mind's ear---at least, if you are over 50, you do. Your Illuminator applied for a publicist job with the L.A. Philharmonic. Why? LL knows a hell of a lot about classical music, and has attended concerts at the Phil since 1969. What's more, LL has written countless reviews and features concerning the orchestra, from his high school paper through college and later two major L.A. newspapers. Why, His Brightness was even L.A. Phil official rep at high school and college! What's more, contrary to what one might conclude from reading this column, LL has a long background in public relations, and at one point founded, organized, promoted, and hosted a titanically successful weekly opera presentation at a large West L.A. restaurant. What's more, Lamps organized and hosted the only tribute to Mario Lanza in Los Angeles history---a three-night concert/film/lecture extravaganza that sold out two shows per night---at which Lanza's family and friends were present. With all this and a heavy background in music writing (including awards), LL figured on getting a callback. Until, that is, he spoke to a local music critic crony, to tip him off about the job opening. "Crony," said LL, "I'll bet I have no chance. They're probably looking for blacks, latinos, women, and gays only, as is the politically correct case with the marketplace---especially in the arts---today." Said Crony: "Right now they have a British woman running the department, with three young females (two of them black, the other a very sweet, 38-ish girl from Long Island with a pop background) in the office." Long way, I told Crony, from the days when music critics were recruited---yes, recruited---by the L.A. Phil to join the publicity department. Well. To make a long story a little longer, LL received a form-letter rejection from the "Department of Human Resources" a few days later, along with the suggestion that he check the Phil website to see what other jobs might be of interest. Your Illuminator wrote back. Two words: "Custodial work?" You see, everything is demographics and political correctness. The Phil mentality is that if they have young, demographically cool employees---their backgrounds in music are secondary, or simply irrelevant---this will help the orchestra to attract these segments of the potential audience. The crushing irony, of course, is that while banal and "cool" advertising and promotion ("Phil your world!") with testosterone-dripping photos of new conductor Gustavo Dudamel might indeed manage to snag a few young, demographically cool audience members, these people will show up largely because going to Disney Hall and seeing a young Latino conductor is "cool," not because they have any understanding of, or interest in, the music. Such people will certainly never become blue-hairs. Translation: they will not be long term audience members or financial supporters of the orchestra. The Phil has essentially turned its back on and taken for granted the segment of the audience that is, and has always been, its biggest base of support.

GAD. ZOOKS.
Your Illuminator steps out into the sticky California summer sunshine, and can only find darkness. It's probably brain chemistry, but still. . .Take the other day, when LL was headed down the 405 to poor little old bankrupt, raggedy Gardena for lunch. Traffic designed by the Marquis de Sade? Sure. A given. Dumb beasts in 3,000-lb. machines playing obliviously with your life, and theirs. These were not the problems. Rather, what was dimming LL's bulb was what was to be found on the radio. Gad. Zooks. Consider: NPR was interviewing some Persian guy about "heavy metal" music in Iran. I kid not. The NPR interviewer was speaking as if this was a subject of enormous weight and consequence to all humankind. One of his statements was something like this: "An Iranian in an Iron Maiden T-shirt. I guess that says it all." Help! Yes, that does say it all, really, though not in the way he intended. It "says it all" concerning the worldwide rush to embrace ugliness, narcissism, self-indulgence, anger, aggression, disdain, and most other ignoble qualities. And the guest, oh my, the guest. . .was saying that "Heavy metal has bloomed like a flower in the desert." I don't know about you, folks, but there is very little similarity between this so-called music and anything as delicate and gorgeous as a flower. It's like comparing Rush Limbaugh with a ruby. Again: Gad. Zooks. Then they played some of the Iranian "heavy metal" that so many Iranians were allegedly embracing for reasons of what the guest described as "catharsis." It made Led Zeppelin sound quaint. There was just a wash of the ugliest, ugliest, ugliest grinding guitar and dumbshit bass and drums---no discernible pattern here---and emanating from the middle of it all, a voice so deep, so distorted, so grotesque, so frightening, as to almost make one believe in De Debbil. This is not music. This is anger and hatred as noise. I weep for humanity! So I switched the station, and was promptly relieved to hear some jazz piano fronting a combo. For a good twenty seconds, it was refreshing, uplifting, and then I noticed that the pianist was slipping in all manner of hipster-jazzbo-insider-weirdo chords in his comping. Ugly chords. Not as ugly as Iranian heavy metal, but not pleasing, and definitely at odds with the melodic line in the right hand. That is, unless you are a hipster-jazzbo-insider who speaks Chord, which I am not. And once again I was reminded of why I dislike so much jazz. It is insider music for insiders---at least a lot of it has become this way. When I finally realized that I was listening to a mutant version of Gershwin's "Summertime," that was all she wrote. I don't care for a lot of Gershwin. It's a white man's version of black music, and hokey at that. I've never understood why it is so widely embraced, and I find "Summertime" to be particularly humorous in its depiction of de lazy, care-free neeeegro lifestyle. Gad. Zooks. So I switched to the classical station, KUSC, and as usual, was hit with the same goddamn lobotomy music they play almost all the time: innocuous baroque or romantic melodies. The dumbing down of symphonic literature to Muzak for ratings. Just sickening. So I played the old "once around the dial" game, despite the fact that there is such a dearth of personality and variety to be found on radio since demographics weeded these things out in exchange for pandering to lowest common denominator response. I paused momentarily on KLOS, because the woman's voice was pleasant, and listened to this DJ talking about a new Doors documentary. She mentioned that KLOS's Jim Ladd could be heard on radio in the documentary, along with KLOS, and that this was "so cool." I wanted to scream. Cool is the Hitler and Stalin and Mao of our time. Just bless something with the word, "cool," it loses all meaning other than a kind of anesthetizing glaze. Hey, I just painted my truck red. Cool! Did you know that people self-asphyxiate for erotic fulfillment? I saw it on the Internet. Cool! I mean, why the hell was it "cool" that Jim Ladd and KLOS were mentioned in this documentary? That is simple self-promotion of the crassest and most undisguised kind, but add the word, "cool," and hey---it's fine. Cool is the ugliest four-letter word in English. It reduces everything into exactly one thing. I switched the station until I found some people speaking Mandarin on some AM station, and left it there.

FOODIE HELL
Lamplighter noticed this sign of the times. . .Not far from Lamplighter Paradise, there is a little restaurant on a busy boulevard. When it opened, it was a high-end Japanese joint, heavy on style and atmosphere. Millions were spent on the dark, elegant interior decore alone. That lasted a few months, before it was sold and repackaged as a high-end tapas bar. Same dark, elegant interior, same off-the-scale prices. Same no customers. That lasted a few months, before it was sold and reopened as a. . .bar. Right, just a bar. With a big banner now plastered over the tres chic exterior, proclaiming "FREE HOT DOGS!" Your Illuminator likes hot dogs---well, veggie "Smart Dogs"---and loves the fact that "foodies" (read: spoiled gluttons) are apparently staying home.

 JIM BELLOWS
The ttitle of his autobiography was "The Last Editor," and I believe this to have been the case. Jim Bellows was 86. My guess is that he had no complaints about anything. He had a nearly mythical life, and did incalculable good for journalism and journalists. He was one of the rare people who had the remarkable knack of getting the best out of everyone. I carry a card in my wallet from Bellows, and will until it wears out. It reads: "Begin at once, and do the best you can."

Bellows Remembered, by Mary Anne Dolan
The Old Smoking Workplace
Tom Wolfe on Jim Bellows
Tony Castro on Bellows, Hollywood, the Her-Ex
Bellows obit by Elaine Woo.
The Last Editor.
Making Funny.
New York Times obit.
Jim Lehrer Hour interview.

WHY NEWSPAPERS ARE DYING. . .

Your Illuminator had a little exchange recently with an old friend and veteran journalist---a guy who has reported and edited for a lot of papers during the last 40 years. Call him lantern lighter Boss.

I mentioned to Boss how crackpot corporate buffoons who call themselves editors and publishers are still--still---talking about charging to visit their newspaper websites! As was mentioned on this site some weeks go, the only thing for papers to do is to pull entirely off the web. This will ensure what they used to have: exclusivity. (And the NYT media columnist agreed, by the way.) Papers should go heavily local, adopt a populist anti-power-elite tone and agenda---"raise hell," as the late Jim Bellows would say---advocate on behalf of the underdog, dog the mayor and city council, bark at overdevelopment, density, gangs, traffic. They should add huge consumer-complaint sections, helping to bring back their reputations as places that people could turn to for help.

Anyhow, in response to the news that idiot editors are still yapping about charging to visit their paper's website, Boss had this to say:

"I know. It shows how desperate these guys are that they'll come up with something like that. It will be interesting when the scholars write the newspaper's obituary. There were a lot of things they could have done. Like:

_ Shelved the outdated delivery model that put the papers in the hands of winos, drug addicts, social deviants and tons of other people who just didn't give a shit if it got there or not.

_ Stopped pandering to corporate stockholders who demanded insanely high returns every quarter and said we're going to have to invest in the new technology.

_ When they finally did put those web sites up, actually updated them during key traffic periods and been ready when a big story broke.I read a story on a study that on Sept. 11, after everybody saw the planes hit the towers on TV, they immediately went to their computers to read more about it. The result, the candy-assed newspaper sites all crashed. Or if they didn't people quickly noticed that they were being run like a print newspaper and wouldn't be updated for another 12 hours.

_ Hadn't been so arrogant after beating back challenges from radio and TV, which never really could compete directly with them anyway, that they thought this silly little toy called the Internet certainly couldn't hurt them.

_ Those and about a hundred other fuck-ups.

"There were no visionaries."

DYING NEWSPAPERS, PART TWO:
Lamplighter had further discussion with Boss, beginning with "Billionaire Eli Broad" (as he is usually identified) and his remarks about how he might be interested in buying the remains of the L.A. Times even though, as he said, "I am not sure it can be a national paper, or have the same aspirations it once had."

Broad is chirping without a bird. The last thing the L.A. Times should do is try to be a "national newspaper!" Them daze is gone with the breaking wind. What a howl. Nobody seems to get it. Nobody seems to grasp that newspapers need to get tough, get irreverent, get gritty, get funny, and cover the hell out of their home towns. Start over. Expect huge circulation drops, and build from there. Here is what Boss had to say:

"Yeah, I saw Broad's statement too. That seemed so silly because all that national newspaper nonsense amounted to was the Times trying to prove it was just as good as The New York Times. It's like they don't realize that that game is over and now they're simply in a struggle to survive.

"That's exactly right, too, when you say newspapers have to become a friend of the community. When they had a monopoly they could get away with being rude, indignant and full of themselves. But those days are over.

"And no one in journalism has really addressed that issue yet: That in recent years hardly anyone in the community really liked the newspaper anymore.

"The local businesses hated it because the ad reps were rude and gouged them because they knew they could tell them to take it or leave it because there was no other vehicle in town for them to advertise in that got that kind of exposure.

And of course everyone hated the reporters and editors because, as a general rule, most reporters and editors are rude, mean, petty bastards who no one really likes anyway.

"And they didn't like the delivery people because they were just lazy jackoffs who didn't care if the paper got there or not, who drove on the wrong side of the street to deliver it and who, if you complained, might toss it on your roof just to show you they could.

"Then you'd read the paper and there would be no sense of humor or humanity, nothing to endear you to it.

"So now that the paper is in desperate shape most people, I think, don't really care. They figure they've got the Internet and Facebook and twitter and all that other stuff, so who the hell needs it. They will discover they were wrong once it's gone, I think, but their misunderstanding now is natural. As Sean Penn said, he realizes how hard he is to like. Newspapers are the same, they just don't realize how hard they are to like.

"When I was in Chicago I read an interview in a local magazine with Ron Rappaport who once was an L.A. Times sportswriter and then a Chicago Tribune sports columnist before going into writing books. Some big shot columnist had just been fired by the Tribune. Not Mike Downey but someone else.. Rappaport said that even though the guy was good nobody would care because nobody in town, or at the paper, liked him. He said Mike Royko may have been a curmudgeon but if you approached him in a bar he'd sit down and have a beer with you, and that was one reason everybody liked him. Newspapers lost almost all the Mike Roykos years ago.

"I remember back at college, one of my professors used to go on about how newspapers being taken over by big corporations would ultimately be a terrible thing. I never quite got it at the time but it became obvious after a few years in the business. As the prof said, you may have loved or hated guys like Hearst and Pulitzer but those were their newspapers and they were going to run them as they saw fit.

"When the corporations took over, the publishers kowtowed to the shareholders who demanded 10, 15, even 20 percent returns on their investment when people in any other industry were happy to get 5 to 10 percent. They just saw the thing as a cash cow and the publishers were too stupid, or cowardly, to tell them anything different. So they went along for the ride as the corporations finally ran those cash cows into the ground.

"Instead of visionaries, you got guys in fancy suits with expensive haircuts and corporate jets and country club memberships who either had no clue what they were doing or were too frightened of giving up the good life to say anything. Or maybe it was a little bit of both."

Now you know why LL calls him "Boss."

MIKE MARTH
I didn't know Mike Marth well, and I hadn't seen him since the 1970's when I heard he died at 72. Marth was a sort of San Fernando Valley beat/hippie-ish poet who somehow snagged a day-job at the Valley News and Green Sheet in the 60's, editing what they then pathetically called the "Teen Page." This was the paper's sort of wretched concession to rock 'n' roll and pop culture coverage in those days. I met Mike in 1974, sometime after I started work there as a copyboy. He was the amiable, shaggy-black-haired features editor, but I think he had a sort of independent contract that gave him a degree of autonomy. Which is perhaps why he was able to begin a Sunday tabloid section at the paper called "Inside The News," and it couldn't have been more at odds with the sensibilities of the Republican publisher and button-down managing editor (who were both liberal-minded enough to allow it, nonetheless.) Marth must have intended Inside to be a sort of literary/commentary/investigative magazine, and the idea of such a thing being found in the pages of the provincial Valley News was no weirder than finding sushi on a Denny's menu. I tried to write a few pieces for it, though I certainly had nothing very mature or weighty to offer. Yet Mike always encouraged me, and I recall one incident in which he responded to criticism over a piece I had written by declaring, rather pointedly, "At least he THINKS!" I took that as encouragement, and you see some of the results on this website, for better or worse. Mike long ago moved to the Midwest, and was still writing poetry, last I heard. He always struck me as a good guy with a generous heart. Thanks for the push, Mike. Sorry I never got to tell you while you were here.---RR.


GRAN TORINO
Of course, "Milk" is the PC movie of the moment. Sean Penn is undoubtedly as good as everyone says he is in portraying San Francisco Supervisor/gay community leader Harvey Milk, murdered by a looney colleague (no need to print his name here.) And there is even a sex scene to enable gays to accuse repulsed heterosexuals of "homophobia!" Oh, yeah, and everyone is also raving about the Nixon/Frost flick, but Lamplighter remembers the actual horrific murder of Milk and the actual horrific near-murder of the country by Nixon. . .so why would he want to see these things again as fiction?

The movie to see, in the not-so-humble critical opinion of LL, is "Gran Torino." Yes, Eastwood hams it up every now and then in a sort of aged "Dirty Harry" way, but Your Illuminator loved every second of it. Yet this is no law-and-order/kill-the-bad-guys romp. It's not only powerfully acted, skillfully directed, operatically moving---it's an important movie. It is one of the few films in recent memory to portray gangs as what they are: a blight that cannot be corrected through social work. ("American Me," which earned Edward James Olmos a death sentence from the Mexican Mafia, comes to mind as another.) True, a lot of kids who get into gangs would probably like to get out at some point. The miraculous Homeboy Industries in downtown L.A. is the obvious proof of that. But gangs are tribalized criminals and the slaves of organized crime, and on the whole, social rehabilitation of these people is a liberal's pipe dream, nothing more. Eastwood knows it, "Gran Torino" writer Nick Schenk probably knows it, and the movie makes it clear.

Folks, we have too long lived in a bizarro world where gang "lifestyle" has been celebrated, exalted by media. Rappers, hiphoppers, homeboys have had near dominance in popular culture in terms of fashion, film iconography, and so-called music for twenty or thirty years. From Snoop Dog on down, these figures are emblematic of nothing but debauchery, violence, banality, mysogeny, brutality, narcissism, threat, guns. It's about time that a movie came along and condemned this vile crap in no uncertain terms.

You know, to hear government, law enforcement, and media talk about gangs, you'd think this was a problem along the severity of rain, or traffic congestion. "The gangs," "gangbanging," "the gang problem" has become as much a cliche as a TeeVee Weathermannequin's "offshore flow." Does anything ever change? Haven't you been reading and hearing about gang murders most of your life?What is ever really done to combat it? Answer: nada. It is accepted, like potholes and Mayor Villaraigosa's crass philandering.

In watching "Gran Torino," LL was reminded again that Bush's "War on Terror" could not have been more misdirected. The cities and suburbs of this country are infected, infested with terrorists---in the form of gangs. Think of the countless billions of dollars wasted on fighting the nearly mythical "Al-Qaeda," on creating the Department of Homeland Security (which has taken the bold anti-terrorist step of making you take you shoes off when you fly)---and think of what that money might have done to countermand gangs.

Oh, how to do it? Money is forever thrown at fighting "gang activity," you say? True. Money, but not sanity. The only way to stop gangs is to take a cue from Bush, as revolting a notion as that is, and declare war. The National Guard should never have been sent to Iraq, it should have been dispatched to American cities. Neighborhoods from Pacoima to South-Central Los Angeles should simply be occupied by the Guard until gangs are eradicated. All gang members should be arrested on sight and "indefinitely detained," civil rights be damned. What rights do people have when they adopt a life of thuggery? As for the Mexican Mafia, which operates gangs all over the western hemisphere---right from inside U.S. prisons!---well, how insane is that?

Of course, these things have no chance of ever occuring here in the land of the free and home of the brave, so not to worry, Tom Hayden. Government and law enforcement are afraid to take on this problem in any serious way, and who can blame them? There are probably more assault weapons in the hands of punks in L.A. then in the hands of soliders in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then,  Uncle Sam is ultimately to blame, what with Byzantine involvement in drugs and guns via the CIA, and the corporate infestation of government which erased any illusion of community responsibility on the part of most elected officials long ago. And let us not forget the cheapening of all human experience by demographic calculation (greed as a science), engendering apathy and entertainment-addiction (read: complacency, haplessness.) It's all part of the same decay, the same devolution. And yes, it is true that rebuilding the education infrastructure is the only real shot this society will ever have at ever recovering any semblance of health. But the fact remains that gang members are savages. Tribal savages whose ethos of death and brutality does not belong in a civilized society. And "Gran Torino," thank Clint, makes this clear.

CARNIVAL OF LIGHT
Of course it should be released. What’s the controversy? George Harrison didn’t care for it? Well, back in the ‘60’s, John Lennon pronounced George’s songs “daft,” and sometimes did not play on them. Yet they were released. Harrison’s “Electronic Sound” album is every bit as experimental as “Carnival of Light,” and nowhere near as interesting.

Eh? You don't know what Lamplighter is ranting about? You're reading about this first, courtesy of Your Illuminator? How appropriate. Well, here's the dope: a Beatles recording whipped up for a psychedelic show in London in 1967 still languishes unheard---unless Paul McCartney manages to persuade the other three parties representing "The Beatles:" Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, Olivia Harrison to release it. Paulie has allowed in recent interviews that he wants te bizarro avant-garde hoot, "Carnival of Light," to see the day.

Amazingly enough, this has promptly become a matter of controversy, debate. Newspaper columnists are weighing in, left and right. The UK Guardian said recently that releasing the thing would damage The Beatles' legacy.

You know, I don't think an H-bomb could damage The Beatles' legacy.

Releasing that earlier version of “Huckleberry Finn” found in an attic a few years ago sure destroyed Mark Twain’s reputation, didn’t it? Releasing the “Devil’s Trill” prelude of Chopin---a short, fairly insane, dissonant outburst probably written during a high fever---has forever tarnished all the works of Chopin, right?

The sad thing about “Carnival of Light” (lovely title!) is that it has become so legendary, and now such a. . .cause. It was just a goof. A chaotic free-form improv to illustrate a light show, done in madcap spirit. In short: it was fun.

And it is also sad that McCartney is using it to once again trumpet how he was the first Beatle to take an interest in the avant garde, not John. Yawn. So what. It’s not so unusual to take an interest in avant garde music. Millions have done it. Yoko beat Paul to that punch, and John Cage beat Yoko, and Varese beat them all. Who’s on first! For McCartney to endlessly drop Stockhausen’s name as a means of touting his artistic sophistication is just embarrassing. The world is well aware of the varied musical abilities and achievements of Sir Paul.

If “Carnival of Light” is released, it will, of course, fetch massive publicity and rivers of serious reviews---which is too bad, considering it is not a serious piece of music (no matter how Paul colors it.) It should have been a no-brainer to put the thing out with no great fanfare long ago, perhaps on some special Beatles occasion, as a lark.

Yet it is true that the track does have historical interest outside of it being a Beatles work from the sixties, as it really was a sort of precursor to Lennon’s “Revolution # 9” sound collage, to the extent that bits of “Light” show up in “Num-bah Ni-eeen.” (How ironic, then, that McCartney was luke-warm to “Rev. 9” when Lennon enthusiastically played it for him during the “white album” sessions.)

Yes, “Light” should be released, but not strictly as a piece of music. Better to issue it according to its original purpose, which was to illustrate another work. In other words, McCartney and “The Beatles” should commission someone to produce an animated film as free form as the music to accompany the release. “Fantasia” it, in other words, a la the film’s abstract opening sequence, set to Bach’s “Tocatta and Fugue” in D-minor.

But the chances are that Yoko, who can't stand McCartney's incessant self-promotion campaign, and Olivia, being true to George's taste (he opposed releasing it on "The Beatles Anthology," will keep "Carnival of Light" in the dark for now.

IRAN FROM THE TRUTH
Your Illuminator is flickering nervous over all the new talk about an Obama strike against Iran. That person reputed to be so careful, restrained, pragmatic would possibly be plotting to "de-nuke" Iran makes you wonder if maybe they know for a fact that Iran plans to use the damn Bomb. LL put this question to lantern-lighter Og Oggilby, who wrote back:

"Yep, gotta remember that these mullah types HATE America. They believe that the West is an abomination in the eyes of Allah and it is meritorious to attack us. And when they see us killing Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc., it confirms their fear that the Great Satan is bent on destroying Islam. It was the presence of U.S. troops on Saudi soil that drove Osama bin Laden over the edge.

"That said, Bush and the war profiteers have looked upon the war on terror as a gigantic profit opportunity, wasting vast sums of money and taking or ruining vast numbers of lives. Of course, the inequities and repression in many Muslim countries make them prime breeding grounds for terrorists. We've done nothing but make matters worse. We are seen as an evil presence. And our alliance with the faux nation of Israel remains a constant outrage.

"We could have used that Iraq war money for diplomacy, education, social and economic development and won friends throughout the region by taking an approach of justice and compassion. Instead we are the leading source of death and destruction. America is the beast that stalks the world, leaving financial and ecological ruination in its path. But that's what America is all about. Greed, profit and power. At least that's what it has become.

"Maybe that nice Mr. Obama will change that to some slight degree. I doubt it. Biden let slip what the script will be:

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/20/biden-obama-tested-world-months-administration/

"The mullahs, the militant Israelis, the U.S. war party, none of them will change their stripes. We're gonna ride this baby into oblivion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcW_Ygs6hm0

"Fun, huh?"

GREENSPAN
Lantern-lighter Dick sent this the other day:

"I can't believe Greenspan's sudden revelations, understandings, and regrets over a financial world that was largely his fantasy. He used to be a disciple of Ayn Rand. That might explain, but not excuse, his benighted culpability and enlightenment. On the front page of the L.A. Times he says: "I made a mistake in presuming that the self- interests of organizations. . . were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity."

"Is that an adult thinking and talking? This savant is not ashamed to sound like he mistakenly believed in the tooth fairy. He knew full well what would happen with unfettered sociopaths who only want to make money at any cost.

"Whew."

To which Your Illuminator adds. . .Greenspan's apology was sort of oh, underwhelming.

Yeah, uh. . .Sorry, folks! Sorry I ruined the country! Oh, wait---make that the western world! Guess my thinking was a little off. Apologies!

P.J. CORKERY, 61

P.J. Corkery, Rense at Washington Square Bar and Grill, 2006.
http://www.riprense.com/corkery.htm

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/24/BA82133MP3.DTL&hw=obituaries&sn=002&sc=967
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Former_columnist_Corkery_dies_at_61.html
Interview
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5039509655991114701
And
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgQCPifM-p8

AREA MAN!
The Onion is such a marvelous thing. It really isn't so much satire as expose---laying bare the idiocy in damn near everything. Between The Onion and John Stewart, you really don't need any more information. That's no joke. It's all the light you need for your lamp. Everything else in mainstream media is darkness.

It's great to see that The Onion is especially keeping tabs on the antics of the country's greatest superhero. . .Area Man!
Here are several links. Can you guess which ones are satire?

Area Man Disappointed To See Short Version of Commercial

Hay Bailer Accident Claims Area Man

Airport Nipple Ring Incident Inspires Area Man

Area Man Training for 'Sanford and Son' Marathon

Court Dismisses Charges Against Area Man

Area man learns that good things really do come to those who wait, though they might have to wait 28 years

Area Man Walks for Suicide Prevention

Area man surprised to learn entire continent of Africa not engaged in armed conflict

Did you goof? It's understandable. So did some antiabortionist blogger, as this article in Salon.com explains.

HALLOWEEN COSTUME
Hey, kids! Wanna scare the bejeezus outta your neighbors this All Hallow’s Eve? Wanna really make ‘em crap their pants? Easy! Go as a Real American!
It’s cheap, too! Why, you can get the effect with just a pair of jeans and K-Mart flannel shirt imported from China, along with a razorback hog crew-cut and a gut like a basketball. (Same for ladies, but transfer the gut to the butt, and add lots of beanbags to simulate cellulite.) Then get your Bible in hand, Glock in holster, and maybe black out a tooth or two. (Spitting, scratching, belching are optional.) But if you really want to bring off the authentic horror of it---really make people decorate their trousers---you’re going to have to get yourselves seriously stoked up with heroic amounts of ignorance, stupidity, pigheadedness, and black bile. Heavily distilled, thick-as-syrup black bile.

How do you do it?

Well, for inspiration, you might try going out and shooting some innocent animals---deer, rabbits, birdies will do fine. Be sure and dress up in full military camouflage, and sneak up on the poor creatures like your life depends on it, then blow the sumbitches away with a double-barrel. Yeah!

After you cut off a trophy head or skin or pluck your prey, wipe some blood on your face, then head down to the Tastee Freeze for three or four chili-cheese-bacon burgers. Top it off with a cheap cigar or a chaw, and a six-pack of Tall Boys, then throw up while watching that commie bastard Keith Olbermann. That’s a good start. Now you’re ready. Your brain should be foggy, if not paralyzed, and whatever thoughts you have uncharitable.

If this still doesn’t put you in a Real American mood, turn the tube back on and shout obscenities at the “media filter.” Cue up one of those “news mix” channels with mini-screens of all the big news stations, and let ‘er rip. Don’t get too creative in your tirade, though. Keep the vocabulary basic, and use “fuck” and its variations as exclamation, adjective, adverb, noun, maybe even an occasional preposition.

The coup de grace: threaten to kill someone, anyone, lotsa people, dogs, women, “niggers,” “coons,” “spics,” “chinks,” “sand-niggers,” “A-rabs,” “towelheads,” and of course commies, socialists, Democrats, liberals.

Then pray to Jesus that he wipes ‘em all out before you do.

Now you’re ready to trick-or-treat.

SCENARIO
LL heard from lantern-lighter Horace Frobrischer the other day (not his real name, lucky for him.) Frobischer had his usual pithy, pissy musings to offer, sentiments that are so outside the "mainstream" that they are to be found exclusively in this column.

Frobischer has been much preoccupied with Bush's free and easy gait and unfettered calm of late, and with Obama's apparent efforts to cozy up to AIPAC, the Christian (so-called) Right, pals of Bilderburg like James Johnson (at least he got rid of that guy in a hurry.) What next, following the Clintons' lead and carousing with Poppy and Barbara Bush? Take it away, Frobischer:

THE RACE RACE
Every time someone mentions anything having to do with race in the context of the election, there is widespread outrage and condemnation. Lamplighter goes dim when this happens. Race is part of this election, whether anyone likes it or not. It has become as much a part of electoral reality as John McCain's cancer should be, and the analogy is sadly apt, given its corrosive impact on the proceedings.

Is Obama half African in heritage? Yes. Does he call himself black and African-American? Yes. Does this have an impact on voters' decisions? Yes. Are such decisions racist? Yes, although they are sometimes based in fear, as opposed to hatred. An explanation. . .

Bill Moyers delivered an eloquent, equitable, typically enlightened commentary a couple weeks ago on his "Bill Moyers' Journal" program on PBS, all about race in this election---an offshoot of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy. Moyers made a convincing historical case for justifying black anger and resentment in this country, in trying to help people come to terms with Rev. Wright's inflammatory remarks about whites. Moyers:

"I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched. Or if my great-great-great grandfather had been but three-fifths of a person in a Constitution that proclaimed: We, the people. Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Conner, and Jesse Helms."

But Moyers missed an important matter, in his reasoned and correct condemnation of racism. Yes, many dirt-stupid voters will vote against Obama because he is black, and they will use every conceivable epithet and horrible allusion in the process, from "nigger" to lynching. But many others will vote against Obama out of fear. Fear of race-based anger and hatred---from the so-called "black community." Rev. Wright manifested this sort of racial hatred in his remarks about white-this and white-that---in a church, no less. But he is the tip of the iceberg. . .

For the past 20-plus years, mass media and the so-called entertainment industry have celebrated, venerated, exalted, christened, and otherwise endorsed images and language conveying the most banal black rage, violence, hatred against whites, against women, against. . .just about everything. LL speaks, of course, of the rap/hiphop/gangsta subculture that has come to be the defining image of African-Americans in the United States, and the world. It is ghastly, it is grotesque, and it is a great crime against the vast majority of African-Americans who simply want to raise families, go to work, and live as peaceably as most people.

No, not all rap music espouses such horror, not all "hiphop" culture conveys hatred. But much of it does, with images of ignorant, hateful, sneering, snarling, gold-chain-laden black men belligerently chanting simple rhymes infused with simple menace. The lyrics are frequently well beyond belief, with references to "niggahz," mocking of "white boys," raping and sodomizing "ho's," killing, etc. Savagery is the right word here. The transformation of so-called gangstas---literal gang members, in many cases, who are guilty of violent crimes---into not only role models, but pop stars, "icons," heroes, is one of the most tragic legacies of modern American culture. It demonstrates callous exploitation of racial divisions, but more important, it demonstrates the completely amoral, venal exploitation of anything that will make a buck. Capitalism without conscience. Never mind consequences to the community. The free market has made slaves out of blacks all over again---slaves to the lure of quick and easy riches, subjugating them as cash cows. Most profits going to their "owners."

So what Moyers missed is that voters have been saturated with this terrifying imagery for decades---voters who might well be relatively open-minded, decent (white) people across America. Where they might wish to be fair minded and evaluate people regardless of race, these people are suspicious and frightened when it comes to voting for a black candidate whose pastor exhibits the same sort of ugly anger toward whites, toward the world, that is espoused in rap/hiphop subculture. 

How ironic that racism and animosity exhibited by blacks is reducing the popularity of the first African-American candidate to have a real shot at the presidency. How ironic, and how tragic.

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.

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.

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, 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.

The whole world could be living in a paradise if it were not for the greedy schemers screwing us over all under the guise of "capitalism." ... we don't have capitalism, we have corporate state socialism. Crazy Uncle Ralphie has it right.

 

And the crazy Palestinians know first hand what's been done to them. But, they like the Iraqis, don't even realize that they've been turned into malign puppets by the Cabal. The Cabal needs enemies to keep the profits rolling in. Instead of being violent militants, they should turn to the Gandhian path of nonviolence en masse. But they've been subjected to stress positions and psychic torture for decades. . .

 

. . .Sort of like the folks in the ghetto and the barrio. Clinton demonstrated that domestic economic development and appropriate policing policies can reduce crime. Bushco has shifted money into the pockets of military-industrial profiteers. Plus it's handy to keep the citizenry agitated by fears of terrorism and crime in the streets. Just like Nixon flooded the ghettoes with heroin and Reagan flooded them with crack. And it's good to have an underclass of blacks and immigrants so they can be hated and feared, rather than people homing in on the real criminals.

 

Of course, Bush is just a symptom of the disease that infects us, like an oozing, noxious abscess on our soul. Hating Bush is a pleasant pursuit, but it is a diversion from doing anything resembling real work. And that should be exposing the moral rot that infests the corporate world and their political stooges.

 

So in Obama, like RFK, I see someone articulating the frustration regular folks feel. It may be a pose on his part, but symbolically it adds a fresh element to the process. He may not have any clue as to what to do when he's president. I've said in the past that he's a stalking horse for Hillary. Imagine how dull it would be if it was Hillary in a cakewalk. Now Hillary can show she can be a winner against a formidable foe. Look for Obama to be her VP candidate.  

IF YOU AIN'T SEEN THIS. . .
. . .Then Lamplighter is glad he is posting it. If the preceding item casts a little darkness over your spirit, this one is a solid blast of joyful illuminatoriousness. If you feel that human beings ever so slightly fail to oh, do the right thing. . .that humanity tends to not exactly exemplify the most altruistic, optimistic, noblest tendencies. . .then take a look at this. It's almost enough to make you think that this race is worth a damn, after all. As reader PJC reminded, "dare to struggle; dare to win, dare to fall and rise again."

NO NEWSMANNEQUIN, HE
There are a lot of people who are very good at arching their eyebrows importantly, and nodding their heads up and down, and shaking their heads from side to side, all the while reading script aloud in very controlled, important-sounding tones. Some of these people, though not many, actually comprehend what they are reading. They are also highly skilled at dying their hair, buying expensive wardrobes, and choosing good cosmetic surgeons to flatten their noses, raise their brows, implant their cheeks, inflate their lips. Many of the females of this group are either blonde or Asian-American, and generally protrude.

They are called "television news anchors."

Jack Noldon is not one of them. Check that: Jack Noldon is a television news anchor, but he has none of the qualifications for the job listed above. Somehow, Jack got into the business and stayed there, despite the fact that he is a journalist who knows how to report a story. Astounding. Thirty years at KSEE Channel 24 in Fresno, California. That ain't jack, Jack. Lamplighter sends a beam.

GORDIAN 9/11 KNOT
Forgive Your Illuminator his relentless and impotent curiosity about the news. It's just old habit. But LL just can't help wondering about the fact that---how did it go?---nuclear secrets were leaked by the U.S. to Pakistan, and possibly to Al-Qaeda? It's complicated, but here goes:

Moles in the US State Department, the Pentagon, and the nuclear weapons establishment were selling nuclear secrets for cash, through Turkey, to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.

Pakistan’s ISI plays footsie with Al-Qaeda.

Still with us?

Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, General Mahmoud Ahmad, was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks in NYC and D.C..

Uh. . .Can you say. . .U.S. involvement in 9/11? Even indirect?

Wait! There's more:

FBI investigators took a number of Turkish and Pakistani operatives into custody for questioning about foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks, BUT a high-ranking State Department official repeatedly acted to spirit them out of the country! (Just as was done with Bin-Laden's extended family.)

Now, don't take our word for all this. These are the claims of Sibel Edmonds, a former Turkish and Arabic translator for the FBI. What reason would Ms. Edmonds have for essentially destroying her life, or at least putting her reputation and life at serious risk, by making these claims? Hmmm. How about. . .conscience!

Before she left the FBI in 2002, Edmonds said she overheard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology---involving a network of Turkish, Pakistani, Israeli, and U.S. spooks.

This, of course, is the way countries generally do business, though you wouldn't know it by watching CNN or Fox.

Well, call LL a dim bulb, but gee, it kinda sorta seems like this story should be oh, blowing all other news stories entirely out of the water, every day, in every paper, and on every news program. Doncha think?

Especially with this wrinkle: Edmonds says the Bush administration blocked investigation of this Gordian Spy Knot and protected those who were committing these acts of treason.

But hey, let's not spoil Amerryguns' illusions or sense of (yuck, yuck) security.  Not to mention entertainment provided by the so-called presidential "campaign," football, and CSI.

Urp.

GOOSE MISS-STEP
Now, LL is not innately or gratuitously cruel. Believe it or not, his morality is thoroughly considered, weighed, sweated over. And Your Beamness does not generally laugh at tragedy, unless it involves Madonna, Paris Hilton, or Oprah. But you'll have to forgive us here:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!

There, that's better.

Oh, the guilt is setting in anyway. We shouldn't laugh at a poor 46-year-old high school math teacher in Houston who died in a freak accident. Anybody who is teaching high school deserves praise and respect, unless they are fornicating with their students or teaching them math the way LL was taught math in high school. But. . .what happened to Perry Price is, oh. . .darn me again, there I go chuckling.

Perry, it seems, took a shotgun out to kill a goose. Readers of this column know that LL finds it just contemptible beyond description that humans think they are so goddamned clever because they use sophisticated weaponry to shoot defenseless, unsuspecting animals. We doubt that Price fetched a very pricey salary, but we also doubt that he found it necessary to supplement his larder by shotgunning geese.

Well, after committing birdicide, old Perry threw his gun in the back of his truck, and it went off, hitting him in the leg. By the time the cops found him, he was a dead duck.

That's one for the birds.