Friday, November 18, 2005

Tomorrow night is my stag and Al has been making a lot of empty threats. How do I know that they are empty? Because if they are real I will quickly buckle Al's woman-knee with a pool cue, thus ending his night. So he knows he'd better watch it.

I'm sure there are some homoerotic tomfooleries planned, but I'm not too worried. I already told Jeff that I can be "Cadrin-stubborn" if I feel like it. And being Cadrin-stubborn is kinda like being stupid decisive in the face of overwhelming logic.

Jasper was awesome, you have no idea how amazing the mountains look after a year in the desert. I was there for work, but still.

Cross still looks like a mountain goats ass though. More hairy though. Kinda like a mountain goat with a Sasquatch draped off it's back end.

"What kinda hairy goat rodeo is this??"

That's something X would say.

As for the rest of the assclowns that have evil plans for me on my stag, well, they know what kind of asshole hero I can be, so if I need to make a stand, I will.

Or not, it depends how drunkass I am.

Och.

A sovereign thought, delivered to your door at 7:15 PM ~~ 2 bonsai trees

shout out out out out out

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Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Part I: Violent Protests in America?

Lori, esteemed educator and world class bootlegger, posted the following comment in response to the article about a tortured-to-death prisoner of the CIA:

Though there have been countless demonstrations, what do people have to do to make it change? Is the rioting in France the answer?

Indeed, one cannot help but wonder how much straw this camel's back can carry. Throughout the run up to the Iraqi invasion, thousands, perhaps millions, of people took to the streets all over the world, from New York to Tokyo to London to Sydney, all in protest of the coming invasion. Then, after bush landed on the aircraft carrier under the mission accomplished banner, we saw the beginning of what is poised to become one of the longest occupations of modern warfare, complete with a full-fledged and very organized guerilla movement, a movement that most experts see as leading to a civil war along religious lines in Iraq.

Then came the Downing Street Memo, Gitmo, the pictures of prisoner abuse from Abu Gharib, and the seeming lack of desire by the bush administration to play by the internationally agreed-upon rules of war and prisoner treatment. And on and on. And on.

There has been so much shit that we have put up with that it boggles the mind to consider how far we have drifted from true democracy, if we ever truly have had it in the first place. And to date, no one has rioted in Washington, no one group has tried to violently oppose the doctrine of the bush administration.

But as Lori mentioned, one wonders if the idea of violent demonstrations remains implausible and beyond the scope of 'civilized' western nations. Certainly impossible to consider in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the idea of violent homegrown rebellion against the foreign policy practices of western nations is no longer as absurd as it once was.

If it comes, and it may, it will not be something organized in the beginning, although if it goes on long enough, organization and "disorder- order" will play a crucial role. It may emerge in pockets, spats of violence. It may come about when a peaceful demonstration turns violent in the blink of an eye. It will start small and then spread. It may "tip."

I suspect it could resemble the demonstrations of the Vietnam era, but perhaps with an increased level of communication among the protestors, much like we have seen in France, where text messaging was used extensively among the rioters.

It may not happen. After all, people really like The O.C. But if the stories of torture and mistreatment that are coming out of Iraq continue to increase in number, and soldiers continue to die needlessly, then perhaps we will see a more militant form of protestor emerge.

I don't want this to happen, I truly don't. If this were to happen I think it would truly shake the American psyche. In fact, I am convinced that the US national psyche, if such a thing can provide blanket coverage for 300 million unique individuals, is not nearly as strong as the media says it is. Katrina showed us the gaps in the US society, between economics and race, and the political spectrum is equally polarized. It is no longer a "united" state.

I hope and fear that a shock is coming that will bind the American electorate together, providing a jolt to the elected officials to save their own political hides, perhaps the only thing any career politician truly cares about. The day is coming that the bush administration will have to deal with the simmering and growing unease the US people have with their international reputation.

Part II: Etc.

I watched the last two episodes of CBC's The National, episodes that featured a new documentary by African filmmaker Sorious Samura. This particular doc was about the toll of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, including the social taboos that contribute to the spread of the disease.

It was heartbreakingly stunning. I have seen a few of Samura's other docs and they are so goddamn illuminating that I usually can't sleep at night after watching them. I urge you to find his docs and watch them, they truly shed light on this ravaged continent.

Out of town until Friday, but I'll try to post something if I can. Night.

A sovereign thought, delivered to your door at 8:10 PM ~~ 2 bonsai trees

shout out out out out out

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Monday, November 14, 2005

Nice to see that the US government is looking out for the long term health care of those currently dodging booby-trapped donkey carcasses and riding around in tin-can trucks in Iraq.

Got their back.

Truly saddening.

A sovereign thought, delivered to your door at 7:51 PM ~~ 0 bonsai trees

shout out out out out out

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Yahoo News
Sun Nov 13, 4:43 PM ET

CIA interrogators apparently tried to cover up the death of an Iraqi "ghost detainee" who died while being interrogated at Abu Ghraib prison, a US magazine reported, after obtaining hundreds of pages of documents, including an autopsy report, about the case.

The death of secret detainee Manadel al-Jamadi was ruled a homicide in a Defense Department autopsy, Time magazine reported, adding that documents it recently obtained included photographs of his battered body, which had been kept on ice to keep it from decomposing, apparently to conceal the circumstances of his death.

The details about his death emerge as US officials continue to debate congressional legislation to ban torture of foreign detainees by US troops overseas, and efforts by the George W. Bush administration to obtain an exemption for the CIA from any future torture ban.

Jamadi was abducted by US Navy Seals on November 4, 2003, on suspicion of harboring explosives and involvement in the bombing of a Red Cross center in Baghdad that killed 12 people, and was placed in Abu Ghraib as an unregistered detainee.

After some 90 minutes of interrogation by CIA officials, he died of "blunt force injuries" and "asphyxiation," according to the autopsy documents obtained by Time.

A forensic scientist who later reviewed the autopsy report told Time that the most likely cause of Jamadi's death was suffocation, which would have occurred when an empty sandbag was placed over his head while his arms were secured up and behind his back, in a crucifixion-like pose.

Blood was mopped up with a chlorine solution before the interrogation scene could be examined by an investigator, Time wrote, adding that after Jamadi's death, a bloodstained hood that had covered his head had disappeared.

Photos of grinning US soldiers crouching over Jamadi's corpse were among the disturbing images that emerged from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004, prompting international outrage and internal US military investigations.

Last week, the New Yorker magazine reported that the US government's policies on interrogating terrorist suspects may preclude the prosecution of CIA agents who commit abuses or even kill detainees, and said the CIA had been implicated in the death of at least four detainees.

Mark Swanner, the CIA agent who interrogated Jamadi, has not been charged with a crime and continues to work for the agency, told investigators that he did not harm Jamadi, Time wrote.

I was going to cut and paste portions of this article, but then I realized that pretty much nothing in it was filler.

Did anyone else read this with a sense of growing astonishment? I had my head in my hands wondering just how this came to be acceptable. I mean, they impeached Clinton for a blowjob, but six or seven years later, state-sponsored death by torture as a means of spreading freedom is a-okay?

Jesus. Allah. Buddha.

And it's not like I am picking these stories out from far left sources. Time magazine, Yahoo News. Not exactly anti-establishment sources hey?

And yet, while this will make waves and pundits will spew their spin, this too will be passed over in favour of the next gory headline, the next weather porn storm.

Pathetic. Goddamn pathetic.

A sovereign thought, delivered to your door at 7:01 PM ~~ 2 bonsai trees

shout out out out out out

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Sunday, November 13, 2005

Ryan Heykants, Soccer Sunday Hero of the Week.

A sovereign thought, delivered to your door at 10:00 PM ~~ 1 bonsai trees

shout out out out out out

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Huh. Well what do you know? I guess I'm a member of Al-Queda.*




*Note to the CIA/FBI et al.- I'm just kidding, I'm not a member. Please don't disappear me.

A sovereign thought, delivered to your door at 8:59 AM ~~ 0 bonsai trees

shout out out out out out

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