We’d like to wish Angelina Jolie a very happy birthday. She turns 45 today. Happy birthday AJ!
N.P.: “Closer to the End” – Mortiis
Category Archives: Lucubrations
The number of unarmed black people killed by police in the U.S. last year was 9. The number of unarmed white people killed by police in the U.S. last year was 19. The number of police officers killed in the U.S. so far (by gunshots, assaults, and vehicular assaults) in the U.S. so far this year (which is not yet even halfway over) is 39.
Of the 4 officers involved in the death of George Floyd, only one was white. The three others appear to be black, Asian, and Latino. The Floyd family commissioned a private autopsy from Dr. Michael Baden who concluded that while Floyd died from asphyxia, it was actually the officer kneeling on Floyd’s back that caused the asphyxia. The officer on his neck did more to slow/limit the blood flow to Floyd’s brain, but that was not the cause of death.
There has been exactly nothing to indicate that the murder of George Floyd was racially motivated. Nothing. Whether it was the white officer with his knee in Floyd’s neck, or any of the non-white officers who actually caused Floyd’s death, there were no racist remarks made. There was no racist chatter on the police radio (as there was in the Rodney King incident). Evidently there was no comment regarding race during the entire Floyd incident. Might race have been a factor? Maybe…that is not known yet. Might other factors have contributed? Sure. The white officer and Floyd knew each other, and had been coworkers previously. Certainly worth exploring, perhaps, before using the incident as a launching pad for protests against an entire country for systemic racism. The American public has been so rhetorically bludgeoned by this narrative that they now see any incident between people of different races as blatantly racist rather than simply incidental.
Not a single public voice has at any point done anything but condemn the murder of George Floyd. As soon as it because public, it was vociferously condemned by every police chief in the country. No one has defended the actions of the police in this case. All four officers were immediately fired, and days later, murder charges filed and all four officers are behind bars. As they should be. That is the judicial system functioning exactly as it’s supposed to.
The most disappointing aspect of the recent chaos has been witnessing otherwise intelligent people completely abandon facts and act instead on feelings alone. It’s alarming how easily the present generation of Americans can be manipulated/controlled. But childlike gullibility is the inevitable result of not teaching any kind of critical thinking skills whatsoever in our education system.
I sometimes think I should use this to my advantage. The one-eyed man being King in the land of the blind and all that.
N.P.: “The Moon is Disgusting” – That 1 Guy
Welp, 24 hours later and curfews are being completely ignored, looting and burning are still happening, and now numerous police officers have been shot. At this point any violence, rioting, or unrest that is happening is only happening because cowardly local and state leaders are allowing it to happen. The prime directive of government is to keep your citizens, and when the government fails to do that, it is time to talk seriously about removing some of these people from office immediately. Gross dereliction of duty, malfeasance, egregious violations of their constitutional oaths: failures to establish justice, failure to ensure domestic tranquility, failure to provide for the common defense, failure to promote the general welfare.
There are increasingly numerous reports of private citizens whom, seeing the complete collapse and failure of local law enforcement and state national guards to keep people and their property safe, have had about enough and are handling things themselves. Those numbers will start increasing exponentially every additional day the government continues to fail.
N.P.: “Man and Machine” – U.D.O.
The mayor of Anhedonia is moron. As are, evidently, most mayors and governors across the United States. This pusillanimous little turd actually went on TV and said that he was not declaring a curfew because, “…as we’ve seen across the country the past few nights, curfews are just ignored, and only serve to antagonize protesters.” Holy shit. Okay, first, the protesters are, definitionally, not burning, looting, or rioting. Protesters are not the problem. But more importantly, are you seriously abdicating your sworn and primary responsibility to protect law-abiding citizens and their homes and businesses because it might be difficult? Do you not understand that only law-abiding citizens abide by the law? Can you not grasp the concept that criminals will break your laws and you need to be able to enforce them?
The last 5 days have seen the complete and inexcusable failure and collapse of local and state governments. And this failure is not a result of lack of supplies, lack of training, lack of resources, or lack of ability. It is a result of cowardice. Not on the part of officers or guardsmen, but in the civic leadership giving the orders.
I’m confident that the decision to retreat and flee Minneapolis’ 3rd Precinct to be overrun and burned by rioters was not the choice of the officers in the building but rather orders from above. But as the kids would say, that is not a good look. It steroidically emboldens the rioters, and sends a very clear message to the communities the departments are supposed to protect: “We can’t even protect our own station…you poor tax-paying bastards are on your own.” Which we’ll get to in a minute.
But mayors and governors…see if you can fish your testicles out of your politically correct donors’ purses and do your fucking job, Since I doubt you can even conjugate the verb “to fight,” let me tell you how to do it. It’s not difficult. If there has been unrest in your city for any or all of the previous 5 nights, you issue a citywide curfew for 20:00. Anyone on the streets after that is subject to questioning and arrest. Any group will be detained and arrested via “felony stop” (at gunpoint), and looters will be shot on sight 24 hours a day. Local and state police will cover the stopping and questioning and arresting of individuals and groups, the national guard will be on looter patrol. Say what you will, but this bullshit would stop tonight. And it needs to stop tonight. Because here’s what nobody seems to be talking about: there are only so many days and nights that law-abiding but well-armed Americans are going to put up with their cities being burned and their law enforcement and local government impotently failing to stop it before they decide, quite rightly, to handle this shit themselves. Which they have no problem doing, and are really being forced to do. But then you will have one large, armed group of civilians shooting at another large, armed group of civilians with the police and national guard looking on as they have up until this point, which would look a lot like a civil war, or at least the beginning of one.
N.P.: “War on Error” – Rotersand
San Francisco is such a shithole. And it’s run by idiots.
Anyway, not to be too persnickety, but in the above graphic, if the 6′ diagonal measurement is correct, those people are only 4.242 feet apart.
N.P.: “Komputer Problems The Otherside Series, Vol. 3” – Le Castle Vania, Gigantor
I was all geared up to watch the launch today, but alas, it was scrubbed until Saturday. Which was disappointing but understandable. Did you see the ground crew’s uniforms? Very metal. They looked liked medieval executioners.
Speaking of metal (?), Danzig’s got an album of Elvis covers out and it’s weird as tits on a bishop.
Here’s the deal: if I or anyone I’m forced to care about is graduating from high school in a particular year, I agree to sit through endless strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” for up to 3 hours straight on one Saturday in May. I loathe that piece of music deeply, and any prolonged exposure to it could very well cause Bad Things To Happen in my sometimes unpredictable psyche. But it’s part of the deal: if you are graduating from high school or only are you forced to endure The Song but you are also dooming your entire family to the same fate. Which really isn’t fair: they sat through it when they graduated…that should be enough.
Anyway, the reason I mention this is because the Lockdown and the media’s attempts to normalize things are messing with the equation. The equation is delicate and not to be messed with: having to hear The Song more than once in any given year is both cruel and unusual. But now, before every single commercial in every single local newscast in Anhedonia for the last two weeks, I have to hear Pomp and Fucking Circumstance while they post pictures and career aspirations of these poor high school graduates, looking all hopeful and optimistic before they get out into the World and have all their hopes and dreams ground down to an unrecognizable turd by the forces of life and love. Which, you know, fuck them…but I don’t want to hear the goddamn song anymore.
I’m probably going to take tomorrow off, dear reader. Fear not…everything’s fine. With any luck, I’ll be far too stuporous to even attempt to string a sentence together. I’ll probably be back here Friday (unless things are going really well and bleed over into Friday too, in which case I will see you back here Saturday).
N.P.: “Rescue Me” – Y&T
Some vicious sun storm has parked itself over Anhedonia and conditions have become totally unacceptable. Triple-digit temperatures in MAY, dear reader. This is horseshit, even for this fetid desert. If things don’t change soon, I may have to seek cooler accommodations elsewhere.
N.P.: “Veriura” – Ruoska
This weekend traditionally marks the change over in desk whiskey from winter whiskey to summer whiskey. This year, that means saying goodbye to the Jack Tennessee Fire that got me through another wimpy winter, and Hellooooooo Nurse to good Old #7 Jack Daniels Goddammit Whiskey. Also purchased were several gallons of the requisite Mexican Pepsi to couple with the whiskey. Yes, of course, I could spend this squalid summer sipping my whiskey neat, like some kind of gentleman, but I’ve got nothing to prove, so it’s Jack and Mexican Pepsi from now ’til Halloween.
N.P.: “Shake Your Blood (feat. Lemmy Kilmister)” – Probot
Wearing masks in public is giving everybody two or three extra points, which points will immediately dissipate upon removal of the mask. Like, if you’re a solid 3, throw a mask over half of that ugly mug and bam…you’re a 5 or 6. This is, of course, because you are withholding information from people looking at you, and the human mind tends to fill in any blanks it finds, and so in the absence of accurate information, people will fill in these blanks with information most suitable to them. So left to idealize half of someone’s appearance, people do, which creates an impossible standard for people to subsequently meet in reality. Once bars and restaurants again become popular mating grounds, and people walk in wearing masks only to take them off to eat or drink, some variation of the phrase, “Ooof…holy shit…put the mask back on,” will be all-too-commonly whispered amongst tablemates about newly arrived neighbors.
The language wars continue. Just a quick update about things I saw today:
“Incel Culture” – No. There is no such thing. It’s the inability to get laid, and the ineptitude of virgins is not my concern. Nor is it yours. It’s up to them…just figure it out like the rest of us did. What you’ve been doing clearly hasn’t worked. So change. But don’t bother me about it.
“Toxic Masculinity” – This is a pathetically masked and wrong-headed attempt to reframe general assholishness as either a specifically masculine quality or an inevitable quality of being masculine. Which is patently bullshit. This is completely fallacious rhetoric and shouldn’t be used…it would be extremely easy to weaponize it in an equally fallacious argument against certain aspects of femininity. But we would never do such a thing. But knock it off.
“Microaggressions” – Just go fuck yourself.
Also, I am tempted to start shooting at the next person that uses the term “self-care” in my presence.
Sorry, dear reader…I’ve been pretty edgy lately. As far as I can tell, it can’t be helped. Maybe tomorrow will be better. For what it’s worth, it’s been pretty good for the writing today.
N.P.: “Step Up (I’m On It)” – Maylene and the Sons of Disaster
The Panty Dropper’s engine has been making a very aggressive and menacing roaring sound for the last 6 months or so. I finally took it in, and my mechanic was all up in there with a stethoscope – an actual grown-up, medical-grade stethoscope. When he emerged from beneath the hood, he declared that he couldn’t find the source of the roar, and started suggesting that it was something metaphysical. “Your car might be possessed.”
“By what?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I’m not a priest. Could be any number of lesser imps, devils, or demons. Could be the dark lord himself.”
“Why would the dark lord want to possess this piece of shit?”
“The Panty Dropper? Who can say? The dark lord also works in mysterious ways. I know that the noise isn’t affecting the performance of the car, such that it is.”
“So what did I do?”
“Turn the radio up.”
“Not an option. Thing’s already on 11.”
“Maybe just think of it as a feature: the Panty Dropper now sounds like a muscle car. Maybe it sounds kinda bad ass.”
“It doesn’t sound bad ass. It sounds like something is wrong. When I pull up somewhere, nobody thinks, ‘Whoa, listen to that bad ass car.’ When I pull up somewhere, people think, ‘Something’s wrong.’”
“That’s not the car…even if you walk up, people think, ‘Something’s wrong.’”
Be that as it may, my car is alerting people to my approach in an unpleasant and inappropriate way. This will not do.
N.P.: “Born to Raise Hell” – Motorhead