DDD SUGGESTED READING FOR DEC 31, 2014

1. If you read Argentina: The Country That Monsanto Poisoned, you're going to have a hard time dispelling the sneaking suspicion that Monsanto may very well be the most evil corporation on Earth, like all your "hippie" friends have been saying all along. It begins:

American biotechnology has turned Argentina into the world’s third-largest soybean producer, but the chemicals powering the boom aren’t confined to soy and cotton and corn fields. They routinely contaminate homes and classrooms and drinking water. A growing chorus of doctors and scientists is warning that their uncontrolled use could be responsible for the increasing number of health problems turning up in hospitals across the South American nation. In the heart of Argentina’s soybean business, house-to-house surveys of 65,000 people in farming communities found cancer rates two to four times higher than the national average, as well as higher rates of hypothyroidism and chronic respiratory illnesses. Associated Press photographer Natacha Pisarenko spent months documenting the issue in farming communities across Argentina.

Trust me, it doesn't get any better from that point on. Of course, there is a parapolitical take on this story and this company that makes excellent grist for the conspiracy theorists' mill, and we'll be coming back to this story both here and on the Useless Eater Blog in the coming months. So make this either the last thing you read in 2014, or the first thing you read in 2015, and then start thinking about how you and I can make a difference on this issue. Our collective future may depend upon it.

2. For those of you who've already followed your friends' advice and watched Charlie Brooker's epochal anthology series for Channel 4, Black Mirror, this New Yorker appreciation piece on the series will be completely superfluous. For those of you who continue to resist this program's stygian charms, however, it might just be the kick in the ass required for you to get off your duffs, find the damn thing, and finally get down to the dirty business of watching the best TV show produced on planet Earth in years.

3. And finally for today, here's a link to an extensive overview of books and articles relating to the failed attempt to tame Afghanistan, written by James Meek from a British point of view, as published in a recent edition of the London Review of Books. It's a massive, magisterial piece of writing (or, if you prefer, you can listen to the first bit as an audio podcast at the link), that begins:

In the morning, I left the village where I’d spent the night, the village where, in the ninth century, a famous king had beaten the army of a northern warlord. I climbed a steep path to a high plateau and walked along dusty tracks. There was gunfire in the distance. In the early afternoon I rested on a hilltop, on the ramparts of ancient fortifications whose shape was outlined in soft bulges and shadings on the slopes. Down in the fertile flatlands, I could see rows of the armoured behemoths Britain bought to protect its troops in Afghanistan from roadside bombs, painted the colour of desert sand and crowded around the maintenance sheds of a military base. There was a roar from the road below and the squeak of tank tracks. A column of Warriors clanked up the hill. The Warrior is a strong fighting vehicle. It can protect a team of soldiers as it carries them into battle. Bullets bounce off it. A single inch-thick shell from its cannon can do terrible damage to anything unarmoured it hits. But these Warriors looked tired. They came into service in the late 1980s, just as the Cold War they’d been designed for was ending, and Afghanistan has a way of diminishing and humbling military technology.

Anybody wishing to understand the depth of the failure in Afghanistan needs to become familiar with the information contained in this awesome, clear-headed, near-book-sized summation. "Worse than a defeat", indeed.

YEAR-END ENTERTAINMENT CATCH-UP VIEWING MARATHON

Two days after my year-end entertainment review (see below), and I've already augmented my year's viewing by quite a few titles! Check out my bullet reviews from two days of binge-movie-and-tv-watching right here and now, below!

Nightcrawler

Two fine films in one! The most searing satire about the television news industry since Network, and a beautifully observed character study about an ambitious go-getter whose innate psychopathic tendencies have been honed to a hypodermic point by a steady diet of self-help books and management lit. As Lou Bloom, Jake Gyllenhaal is great, and will likely be nominated for multiple awards, but England’s Riz Ahmed (of the Christopher Morris Islamic terror satire Four Lions) really stands out as Bloom’s reluctant, somewhat dim assistant Rick.

What We Do in the Shadows

"Trailer Park Vampires"? This is a mockumentary about a bunch of vampires who all live together. In Wellington, New Zealand. And it’s fantastic… maybe the best comedy I watched in all of 2014. It’s absolutely hilarious and unexpectedly good-hearted. They could have gone the other way with it and still had a great, original movie, but I’m glad they decided to make these guys recognizably lovable losers. If this was a series, I'd watch.

The Dance of Reality

Alejandro Jodorowsky's surrealist autobiographical phantasmagoria has a lot going for it. The imagery is gorgeous and inspired, as always, and it's emotionally devastating in parts. However, I imagine this movie would be tough going for anyone who wasn't already a fan of Jodo's oeuvre. The same cannot be said of the previous Jodorowsky film this year, Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune, which was one of my Fave Fives of the year (see below). Fans of Fellini might also find something here to love.

The Brothers Solomon / Let’s Go To Prison

I'm a long-time fan of Bob Odenkirk, co-creator with David Cross of the seminal 90’s sketch series Mr. Show with Bob and David. I think he’s one of the finest comedy minds of our generation. Unfortunately, he recently wrote and directed two of the most badly-reviewed movies of the decade. Let’s Go to Prison scored 13% on Rotten Tomatoes, while Brothers Solomon scored 15%. Those are some ugly numbers. So I decided to check them out, just to see how bad they really are. And you know what? They’re not that bad. Don’t get me wrong; they’re not exceptional or anything … but they certainly aren't as bad as their reviews. Both films are far funnier than, say, The Interview, and that piece of crap sits comfortably at 52%. They’re just a couple of fun, dumb flicks, and I guarantee if you watch them, you’ll laugh at least a few times during each one. I could certainly think of worse ways to spend a couple hours than watching these two movies.

St. Vincent

If you're a fan of great ensemble acting – and everyone in this movie is giving it their all, acting-wise – and you don't mind choking down a hefty side-order of schmaltz to go along with it, then maybe you'll be able to forgive St Vincent its emotionally manipulative excesses and enjoy its finer qualities. This movie could have been great, but as it stands, it’s only just decent. Sometimes, that can be worse than an outright failure.

Mike Tyson Mysteries

In the first episode of this Adult Swim series, Mike Tyson, an Asian girl, the ghost of the Marquess of Queensberry and a pigeon with the voice of comedian Norm MacDonald head to New Mexico to help novelist Cormac McCarthy – who is a centaur – write the ending to his latest novel and defeat a Chupacabra, which turns out to be John Updike in disguise. In subsequent episodes, things get weird.

DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ DEC 28, 2014

WOULD YOU TRUST THE MAN ON THE RIGHT?

1. You know how, in the strange online world of "conspiracy theory" research, individuals who fall out of favor with any particular message board's groupthink - and stick to their guns about it - will invariably be called out as "disinfo" agents? It's a serious accusation, to declare someone a paid provocateur with a mandate to infiltrate an online group full of legitimate, unbiased truth-seekers and pervert their ability to properly assess the goings-on by mixing a little bit of truth with a whole lot of fabrication, thus rendering everything and anything that group comes to take as an assumed truth more easy to "debunk" at some future point in time. Well, after reading this article from the Leopold Report - an article that paints in intricate, detailed little brushstrokes just exactly how damaging to the concepts of truth and justice and history a real disinformation agent can truly be - you'll never again call someone who is merely wrong-headed or dogmatic a disinfo agent. 

This Oswald LeWinter fellow (1931-2013) described at the link is a criminal of the highest order, and you'll be shocked to discover how one CIA-connected literature prof's twisted lie/truth combos have hindered and poisoned investigations into everything from the murder of Olaf Palme to the October Surprise. Everyone from InterPol to Pentagon whistleblower Barbara Honegger got caught up in his web of bullshit.

A key bit:

[Journalist Robert] Parry asked LeWinter why he had contacted journalists to - as he claimed - expose October Surprise, when he had submitted so much obviously false information. One of these was that he claimed that one of Reagan's advisers had been in Paris and negotiated with the Iranian leadership, when it was easy to prove that the same person at that time was in the US - as a participant in a live television program (Parry 1993:67ff). 

LeWinter replied:

"I was asked by some people to mount a disinformation campaign". [..] "Barbara Honegger [..] had started enough interest in the newspaper community and the media to throw a negative light on George Bush's candidacy, potentially a negative light. The people who asked me to intervene felt that the country could not stand another Watergate, another major political scandal and upheaval, and also worried that the Democratic party's candidate might have hurt the intelligence community, which was just in the process of recovering from the damage that had been done to it during the Carter administration." 

His next statement is important: 

"I contacted Barbara Honegger through another person. [..] I managed to pass on some information to her which had factual elements in it, but also elements that with a little bit of digging could be discovered to be questionable. The story would lead some investigators to spend time and effort running into blind alleys, with the result that eventually the whole story would be discredited." 

LeWinter also admitted to having received USD 100,000 in payment for his disinformation campaign.

Ultimately, it took a man like investigative journalist Robert Parry (a personal favorite of mine) to suss out just a bit of the truth about LeWinter's true character. This is truly terrifying stuff, and one of the reasons why perjury is considered such a serious goddamn crime. 

2. Even though I can't help but harbor suspicions that Western accounts of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's criminal depravity have been exaggerated for a century's worth of propaganda purposes, this American Scholar article about Stalin's unlikely rise to power is still very much worth your time.

Except for Mao, and perhaps Genghis Khan, Joseph Stalin stands as the greatest mass murderer in history. His war on the peasantry killed perhaps 14 million people, half of whom were deliberately starved to death. This project of “dekulakization” and “collectivization” overshadows even the Great Purge of 1936–38, which claimed some four million lives. Several small ethnic minorities suspected of disloyalty lost half their population, and tens of millions were swallowed into the massive system of forced labor camps known as the Gulag Archipelago. ... 

How was all this carnage possible? How did a revolution made in the name of social justice, and supported by so many progressive spirits around the world, lead to such monstrous results? What made Stalin capable of such cruelty, and how did he manage to accumulate the power to practice it?

Keep reading to find out more!

3. One of the most intriguing if little known episodes of the Cold War Collapse era involved Frank Zappa's brief tenure as "special ambassador to the West on trade, culture and tourism" for the newly-liberated nation of Czechoslovakia. See, it turns out Vaclav Havel - dissident author and leading figure in the "Velvet Revolution" - was a really big fan of Zappa's band, The Mothers. As journalist Jack Anderson explained it in his oddly apologetic account of the events:

Havel, a playwright known for absurd satire, met Zappa in Prague in January 1990, and the two men hit it off immediately. Havel had long been a fan of Zappa's music genius and even credited his music as part of the inspiration for the anti-communist revolution. A Czech group, The Plastic People of the Universe, named after one of Zappa's songs, copied his style and became an underground sensation in Czechoslovakia. Their revolutionary lyrics so irritated the communist government that the group was thrown behind bars for disturbing the peace. That mobilized Havel and other artists to form a dissident group that led the opposition and, after communism was toppled, formed the nucleus of the current Czech government. So Havel had plenty to thank Zappa for. He was so grateful, in fact, that he impetuously created the special ambassadorship for Zappa. The musician left town with Havel's praise in his ears and the adulation of hundreds of fans who treated him as a Czech national hero.

Unfortunately for Frank, the Bush Crime Family didn't much care for the cut of his jib. They dispatched their most trusted consigliere, unindicted co-conspirator James Baker III, to threaten Havel thusly:

"You can do business with the United States or you can do business with Frank Zappa."

Frank Zappa happens to be my very favorite musician, as well as a personal hero and an ongoing inspiration for more reasons than I could possibly list in this space. So you'll forgive me for being suspicious about the fact that this rather formidable individual would be dead and buried a mere three years after his brush with Pure Evil, chronicled above.

MEDIAVORE:FILM ~ ABC'S OF DEATH 2

Here's a rundown of my take on all the shorts contained therein.

"A is for Amateur" is a fun bit of reality check fiction about the trials and tribulations of a hired assassin. 6/10

"B is for Badger" stars one of my favorite actors, Julian Barratt, as an asshole trying to host a crusading nature show, so it gets an automatic 7/10.

"C is for Capital Punishment" was somewhat thought provoking but kind of predictable. Well executed though. 6/10

"D is for Deloused" is an awesome surreal stop-motion animation by Robert Morgan. 7/10

"E is for Equilibrium" is a dirty desert island joke. 5/10

"F is for Falling" is an emotionally complex tale about an Israeli woman caught in a tree by her parachute and found by a hostile Palestinian boy. 8/10

"G is for Grandad" is bizarre but compelling. 6/10

"H is for Head Games" is a feast for fans of Bill Plympton's animation, but not much else. 5/10

"I is for Invincible" is one of those bizarre Asian confections that made the first movie in this series so goddamn unpredictable. 5/10

"J is for Jesus", I did NOT understand. Stigmata meets Thelema? Strange mix. 5/10

"K is for Knell" is a beautiful, snappy Lovecraftian tone poem. 9/10

"L is for Legacy" is a goddamn bizarre tale about an African sacrifice that doesn't go off as planned. Kind of like a Ugandan version of Abraham and Isaac. 5/10

"M is for Masticate" is one of the best bits from either film, and on its own is one of the finest short films I've seen in years. 10/10

"N is for Nexus" is just... okay. 5/10

"O is for Ochlocracy" is a strange tale about a woman sentenced to death by a courtroom full of zombies... including the daughter she mercy-killed! 6/10

"P is for P-P-P-P SCARY!" inspired a couple chuckles, but otherwise was a waste of time. 2/10

"Q is for Questionnaire" answers the question about what Scientology does with all those "free" personality tests they give. 5/10

"R is for Roulette" is... well, the less I say about it, the better. 8/10

"S is for Split" is compelling and disturbing. 7/10

"T is for Torture Porn" is a waste of time. 2/10

"U is for Utopia" is a slick, gorgeous effort, as well it should be, seeing as it's directed by veteran genre stylist Vincenzo Natali. 9/10

"V is for Vacation" is... a brutal standout about Third World revenge on a couple of vile Western sex tourists. 8/10

"W is for Wish" would be more at home on Adult Swim. But it was fun enough. 5/10

"X is for Xylophone" is a gruesome warning against leaving your kid with a babysitter, but Beatrice Dalle's considerable talents are wasted in this slight effort. 4/10

"Y is for Youth" is another one of those wacky Asian entries. Either 1/10 or 9/10, depending on whether or not you dig that surreal Japanese aesthetic.

"Z is for Zygote" is a suitably grim and polished Southern Gothic fantasmagoria that finishes things off in style. 8/10

Final judgement? Overall, I dug this flick just a bit more than the original, which had higher highs, but fewer of them, and a lot more lows than this one. More British entries and fewer Asian ones means the comprehensibility of these shorts is greatly increased. I definitely recommend it, and would dearly love to participate in a future entry of this series.

Sooo... attention Ant Timpson and Tim League, if you're reading this review, Marc Roussel and I are ready, willing and able to produce a short for you guys!

2014 IN REVIEW - THE ENTERTAINMENT FILE

I don't get to see as many movies as I would like to these days, but I figured I’ve probably seen enough to do a “2014 in review” sort of look back at the year in motion picture entertainment, both filmic and televisual. Don’t worry, I’m going to try to make this brief as I don't have a whole lot to say about most of these titles, other than to let you know how much I did – or didn't – enjoy them.

Starting things off with the blockbuster titles that I managed to catch this year, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies was… okay. Which is kind of a huge disappointment in the grand scheme of things. I mean, we got tons of digi-Elves and digi-Dwarves fighting digi-Orcs and digi-Bats; the world-building was magnificent, a feast for the senses. But gone were the high stakes and beautiful characterizations that made Lord of the Rings such an unmitigated success. Fortunately, anybody wanting to watch all six Middle Earth films in a row will be ending with the older trilogy, which is damn good news for Peter Jackson and his future reputation.

I also caught Godzilla in theaters, and thought it was pretty “meh”. The initial trailer was better than the film, itself, so that’s never good. I mean, that trailer was fucking killer, it’s true. But still, your film should at least be as good as the trailer in parts. Otherwise, people are gonna talk.

Which brings us to Edge of Tomorrow, the Tom Cruise shoulda-been-a-blockbuster cinema-biz mystery of the year. “Why didn't it do better at the box?” everyone wanted to know. Is Cruise’s star power finally starting to fade? Frankly, although I enjoyed Edge of Tomorrow – or, as it’s been re-branded in a rather desperate attempt to entrap new viewers, Live, Die, Repeat – I couldn't quite agree with those calling it a masterpiece, or even particularly good science-fiction. It’s a bubble-gum action movie with an interesting twist, visually uninteresting aliens with a ridiculously awkward weakness (kill the mama, they all fall down), and a few good jokes. That’s all.

Those of you who know me well know that, when it comes to comics, I’m a Marvel boy. So of course I caught Captain American Winter Soldier, a.k.a. Seven Days of the Condor in May (get it?). It was wildly exciting, beautifully rendered, thrilling from beginning to end, and certainly did a good job of imparting gravitas to the character of Captain America. Also, it had my favorite line in pop cinema this year (“Hail Hydra!”). Two thumbs way up.

Of course we can’t discuss Marvel and 2014 blockbusters without bringing up the year’s top earner at the global box, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. It certainly brought the cute… a little too much cute for my taste, truth be told. But it was fun and frothy and feather-light, and nothing more need be said about it, except to say that I can’t wait for Dr. Strange to finally bring a little darkness and danger to Marvel’s cinematic universe. Isn't it time one of these movies had a hero that we’re actually more than a little bit afraid of? Hulk doesn't count, of course, because I love Hulk as a mother loves a favorite child.

Speaking of dark Marvel characters, 2014 brought us rampaging pederast Bryan Singer’s dank and dour X-Men Days of Future Past. Budgeted at an astonishing $200 million with a featured cast of dozens, this movie gets so many things wrong that I don't even know where to begin. The far-future Sentinels allegedly based on Mystique’s chameleon powers suddenly being able to replicate the powers of any mutants they come into contact with (whereas Mystique can only copy appearances, not powers) is one of myriad dumbass blunders that made this movie almost unwatchable for me. The lack of even a single decent Wolverine scrap only compounded things. The Quicksilver scene was fantastic, though… a diamond in the crap-heap.

2014 has been kind of a shit year for comedies, with only three of note sticking in my brain-pan. Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa was good fun, if a bit by-the-numbers in the plot department. I’m a huge Steve Coogan fan, however, so I’m not exactly impartial. The bizarre and utterly perverse Danish comedy Klovn, in which Frank Hvam kidnaps his nephew and takes him on a canoe trip with his orgy-loving buddy, Casper, originally came out in 2010, but I only saw it this year, so fuck you. Dumb and Dumber is in my top ten films of all time – not comedies, mind you, but films – so I was worried about Dumb and Dumber To. Although it had a few hearty laughs, it was otherwise disappointing.

I saw a bunch of decent horror films this year, including the shockingly good independent feature Proxy, about which I refuse to say anything other than to insist that you find a copy and watch it as soon as humanly possible. The Australian effort The Babadook and New Zealand’s Housebound are also worth watching. Both gave nice twists on old tropes, even though both were also a bit more familiar than their biggest cheerleaders in the press let on. The Babadook suffered from a weak finale, and Housebound stole its biggest and best scare from the American 70’s TV movie, Bad Ronald. If your tastes run towards Satanic secret societies and body horror, then Starry Eyes needs to go on your “must see” list ASAP. And if you’re into Bigfoot movies, you’re in luck, because this year saw two decent ones: Exists and Willow Creek. Kevin Smith’s Tusk was an inexcusable piece of shit.

Turning our attention towards the highbrow, I caught Blue Ruin on the recommendation of my partner in crime, Marc Roussel, and although I didn't like it as much as he did, I still thought it was a worthwhile effort. It would make a great double-feature with Red, White and Blue, one of the most harrowing independent dramas I caught all year. I saw Gone Girl and didn't see what all the fuss was about.

My favorite films of 2014 are a varied bunch. Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel hit all the right buttons for me. If you're not a fan of his films, then don't bother, because this one is just like the other ones, only more so. For me, that’s an unqualified recommendation. With A Field in England, Ben Wheatley continues his ascent to the cinematic pantheon. After watching Kill List, Sightseers, and now this one, I'm almost afraid to see what he’s going to dish up in his adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s dystopic novel, High Rise, next year. Jodorowsky’s Dune was my favorite documentary of the year, which is understandable seeing as it’s about one of my favorite people in the universe. I thoroughly enjoyed Jim Jarmusch’s dreamy vampire dramedy Only Lovers Left Alive, which featured beautiful performances by the leads – feral and controlled, perfectly vampiric. Johnathan Glazer’s Under the Skin left me confused on first watch, but subsequent viewings allowed for a deeper appreciation. Aesthetically, it’s near perfect.

This year also saw a veritable torrent of crap, of which I fortunately only saw a few: Amazing Spider Man 2, which was just shockingly, inexplicably bad. Just horrendous. And then there was The Interview. Sweet Christ… I had to wonder at what point Seth Rogen realized that, yes indeed, James Franco was going to be going with THAT kind of performance, and whether that realization caused him to vomit right then and there, or was he able to keep it under control just long enough to reach the washroom where he could quietly sob the hurt away in a private stall?

2014 also saw a bunch of remakes and sequels that nobody wanted, chief among them being Robocop, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Exodus Gods and Kings and the overly-titled Night at the Museum Secret of the Tomb. I’d say the same for Transformers Age of Extinction, but that movie made almost as much as Guardians of the Galaxy, so weep for the world, but don't call it a failure. This year also saw three of the worst hunks of right-wing propaganda ever committed to digital video: Atlas shrugged III, the Left Behind remake (with Nicholas Cage taking over the role made famous by Kirk Fucking Cameron) and the ridiculous God’s Not Dead, in which Hercules proves that intellectuals don’t know SHIT.

There are a bunch of movies that came out this year that I have yet to see, but that I plan to see in the coming weeks. Among these are Nightcrawler, Boyhood, What We Do in the Shadows, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Leviathan, Foxcatcher, Birdman, Alleluia, Citizenfour, The Imitation Game, The Dance of Reality, Inherent Vice and Snowpiercer.

And, finally, although I don't watch very much television, the boob tube has managed to produce a number of interesting cultural concoctions over the last 12 months. Series that I have enjoyed this year include Tim and Eric’s Bedtime Stories and The Eric Andre Show, both for Adult Swim. The Cartoon Network’s Over the Garden Wall might be the finest piece of pure storytelling that I encountered in any medium in 2014, and, as I've stated in this space before, it deserves ALL THE AWARDS. The UK’s Utopia: Series Two isn't quite as good as the first series, but it's still head and shoulders above any American series, with the possible exception of True Detective (blown last episode notwithstanding) and The Knick. As far as comedy goes, Enlightened was heavy and Silicon Valley was light, but both were very well done and I will definitely be revisiting them next season. And even though Charlie Brooker’s incredible anthology series Black Mirror wasn't back for a full season this year, we did get the amazing 90-minute special Black Mirror / White Christmas, which was the best serious science fiction offering in any medium this year.

And so there you have it. My entertainment year in review for 2014. Please note that I didn't mention Interstellar or I, Frankenstein anywhere in this rather lengthy article, which is something I think that will set me apart from the rather crowded year-in-review field this year. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks.

Okay, I’m off to watch Nightcrawler now. Cheers!
Yer old pal Jerky

THE POWER PRINCIPLE DOCUMENTARY SERIES CONCORDANCE COLLECTION

One of the goals I have for Useless Eater Blog is that it serve as something like an ongoing undergraduate-level course in parapolitical science. Obviously, not every post or article is going to be in keeping with this lofty ambition - I'm only human after all, and am not above using my tiny platform to launch the occasional editorial cheap-shot, or pick on the odd easy target for a laugh - but my resolution for the New Year is to make sure the substance/bullshit ratio becomes a little less embarrassing to me.

In order to separate the wheat from the chaff, I will be creating a new Useless Eater Blog sub-section called ParaPolitical Science 101. In this section, I will be warehousing those posts and articles that I feel meet a certain standard and serve to increase my regular readers' knowledge and awareness about everything from forgotten chapters in ancient history, to in depth analysis of contemporary "conspiracy culture" developments... for better or worse.

Having said that, my study guides, or "concordances", for Scott Noble's excellent documentary series The Power Principle represent exactly the kind of work that I'm going to be doing more of in the coming years. In these three articles, I attempt to summarize - and, in certain respects, expand upon - the information presented in these insightful, thought-provoking documentary films, which Information Clearing House called "probably the best documentary ever made about American foreign policy."

I'll be using Metanoia Films' own summaries to describe the contents of each film in the series.

The Power Principle I: EMPIRE 

An Introduction to the Empire; Iran – Oil and Geopolitics; Guatemala – the “merger of state and corporate power”; The Congo – Neocolonialism; Grenada – “The Mafia Doctrine”; Chile – “libertarianism with a small l"; Globalization: Consequences. 1945: Grand Area Strategy; Fascism: a “rational system of the plutocracy”; Case Studies: the Greek Communists; The Italian Communists; the Spanish Anarchists; Fascism’s Western backers; Trading with the Enemy; Fascism as “preservation of civilization”; the Cold War and “A Century of Fear”.

The Power Principle II: PROPAGANDA 

The Soviet Menace?; Case Studies: El Salvador, Nicaragua; Propaganda: Self-Deception and blowback; The “International Communist Conspiracy”; Declassified Documents; NSC 68; The Pentagon as Keynsian Mechanism; The Military Industrial Complex; The War against the Third World; Shifting rationales; What is imperialism?; Case Study: Haiti; “War is a racket”. Fear-based conditioning - The War of the Worlds, The Triumph of the Will; World view Warfare; The Russians are coming; Television: The “perfect propaganda medium”; Soviet vs. American propaganda; Hollywood and the Pentagon; Psywarriors and the media; Operation Mockingbird; The Pentagon Pundits; Project Revere; The Bomber Gap; “scare the hell out of them”.

The Power Principle III: APOCALYPSE

Mutually Assured Destruction; MAD men - Curtis Lemay and the super hawks; MAD men - Hermann Kahn and the Rand Corporation; Over flights as provocation; Cuba: the “danger of a good example”; terrorism against Cuba; “Unconventional warfare”; the Cuban Missile Crisis and the “man who saved the world”. Why did the Soviet Union collapse?; Gorbachev: a “more violent, less stable world”; the Pentagon’s New Map; Did Ronald Reagan end the Cold War?; The Brink of Apocalypse: Able Archer; The betrayal of Russia; The expansion of NATO; Yugoslavia and Libya; the Yeltsin coup; Living standards in the former Soviet Union; A third way?

Ideally, I would urge you to watch each of these three films from beginning to end, in the proper order, with my study guides open in another browser should you require clarification or more information about all the various historical events, individuals, or contributors therein. However, for the parapolitical seeker who is short on time, my concordances can also serve as a handy summary of these three feature-length films, in a format that shouldn't take you much more than twenty minutes to read, total. Hence my suggestion that you "clip and save" them somewhere for future reference.

***

If you enjoyed my concordances for The Power Principle series, then you might also enjoy a similar piece I wrote a couple years ago for Lutz Dammbeck's 2003 documentary The Net: The Unabomber, LSD and the Internet. As with the above films, I guarantee that you will encounter a bunch of new, mind-blowing information that you've never come across before... all of it impeccably sourced and researched.

JERKY'S CHRISTMAS LETTER

Hey gang;

As most of you reading this are already aware, between February of 1999 and September of 2006, I produced an online satirical "adult" newsletter called The Daily Dirt under the nom de plume Jerky LeBoeuf. What most of you probably are not aware of is that I neither created, nor owned, the Dirt. I was simply a hired hand. I had no control over the (often grotesque) ads that were placed next to my copy, and over the length of my tenure I was subject to varying degrees of editorial interference by The Management.

When things were going well, and ad revenues were good, I was mostly left to my own devices. When profits decreased - due to a number of factors, many completely beyond anyone's control - interference increased. That's why I wasn't totally crushed when the decision was made to shut things down. Writing the Dirt - being Jerky LeBoeuf - hadn't been fun or rewarding for quite a long while by that point.

Thankfully, my employers still had use for my skill-set, and I continued to work for them in various capacities for another five years. I also pursued my love of cinema, taking part in the production of a number of short films with my oldest and best friend, Marc Roussel. We've recently had some success, and we're both currently working on interesting projects, and I have a feeling 2015 is going to be a very good year for both of us. So please keep your fingers crossed!

There was, however, one thing that I did miss about writing the Daily Dirt: interacting with the readers. After all, many of what I used to refer to as the "hard core" had been with me for the better part of a decade. At peak levels, the Dirt had a daily readership of over 200,000, necessitating the employment of an assistant who dealt exclusively with the incoming mail - requests for advice, editorial and joke submissions, hate mail, and even the odd death threat!

In 2012, after being laid off, and after years of emails from former readers asking when I was going to revive the Daily Dirt, I decided to start a sort of refugee club on Facebook called Daily Dirt Diaspora. It's a modest affair, with just over 200 members, but it was a start. It was also in 2012 that I decided to create a new blog of that same name... and here you are, reading it.

I found the process of blogging so enjoyable that I decided to create two more blogs in relatively short order. First came Useless Eater Blog, where I explore aspects of what I refer to as "paraculture" - everything from secret societies and conspiracy theories, to alternative spiritual exercises and advances in "mad" science. Proving that the Art Bell Syndrome is still running rampant, this is far and away the most popular of my blogs. Rounding out the triumvirate is Kubrick U, my blog about the late, great Stanley Kubrick.

I have ideas for another couple websites, including one devoted exclusively to my illustration and fiction, but what I really want to do with 2015 is make it the year in which I focus on producing. By this time next year, I want to be able to look back on what I've done, and be able to say that I gave it my all, that I produced good work, and that I grew as a writer, as an illustrator, and as a human being.

And so, this year-end Christmas letter is just as much a note to myself as it is to you, my dear friends, some of whom have been with me through almost seven years of relative silence. My promise to you is that I will do my best to create work that is worthy of your attention. And my promise to me is that I'm going to set things up in such a manner that I'll be able to make the most of that dwindling, precious, non-renewable resource... time.

Love, enlightenment and fulfillment to you all!
The Artist Formerly Known As Yer Old Pal Jerky
a.k.a Mark Thibodeau

THE POWER PRINCIPLE III: APOCALYPSE ~ A CONCORDANCE

CLIP AND SAVE FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

A CONCORDANCE 

or a series of notes and thoughts on 

THE POWER PRINCIPLE III - APOCALYPSE

a documentary by Scott Noble and Metanoia Films

The following notes were taken by myself during viewings of the film. The text presented includes some direct references to statements made on camera (indicated by quotation marks), as well as a number of observations, side references and potential avenues for further inquiry that came to mind as I watched. I do this because I believe this film to be an important document in the field of parapolitics, and anything I can do to help get it seen by more people - and, in particular, the RIGHT people - I see as worth doing. Secondly, I wanted to create an easy-to-use text and image based "study guide" that both documents and compliments the information presented in the film. As always, I leave it for you readers to decide whether or not I have succeeded on that count. - YOPJ 15/22/2014

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE AND FOLLOW 

THE CONCORDANCE BELOW!

Power Principle III - Apocalypse from S DN on Vimeo.

CAVEATS AND SUCH (00:00)

“This film contains controversial subject matter. Interview subjects and creators of some source material may not agree with certain views presented. The Power Principle is a non-profit documentary and has been released online for free.”

PREAMBLE

"It is essential to release humanity from the false fixations of yesterday, which seem now to bind it to a rationale of action leading only to extinction."

- R. Buckminster Fuller

PART ONE - THE GREAT GOD "M.A.D." (00:00)

KEEP READING AT THE USELESS EATER BLOG!

DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ DEC 24, 2014

1. The Scientology Christmas Catalog is equal parts mind-bendingly insane and embarrassingly pathetic... just the way you probably would have imagined it would be. The link provided actually doesn't take you to the catalog itself, but rather to a Deadspin rundown of some of the more ridiculous items that can be purchased therein. Here's an example: 

Price: $75 

Copy: "The Student Hat Dictionary contains every technical term, every slang word and phrase, every historical reference, defined exactly in the context Ron used them. This is a dictionary Scientologists have long dreamed of. With over 4,500 definitions …." 

Drew says: Yes, 4,500 definitions! All of them wrong! Imagine paying $75 for your child to unlearn the language of English. Ah, but this dictionary of gobbledygook (sample entries: "all but," "all-out," "all the way through") is a bargain compared to the rest of the literature on hand in this catalog. In fact, if you want to talk like a weird old dead guy who once thought aliens were buried in volcanoes, this is pretty much your cheapest option. As you will see …

2. Did you ever hear the one about the Canadian City that Eliminated Poverty and Everybody Forgot About It? Read all about it.

Between 1974 and 1979, residents of a small Manitoba city were selected to be subjects in a project that ensured basic annual incomes for everyone. For five years, monthly cheques were delivered to the poorest residents of Dauphin, Man. – no strings attached.
And for five years, poverty was completely eliminated. 

The program was dubbed “Mincome” – a neologism of “minimum income” – and it was the first of its kind in North America. It stood out from similar American projects at the time because it didn’t shut out seniors and the disabled from qualification. 

The project’s original intent was to evaluate if giving cheques to the working poor, enough to top-up their incomes to a living wage, would kill people’s motivation to work. It didn’t. 

But the Conservative government that took power provincially in 1977 – and federally in 1979 – had no interest in implementing the project more widely. Researchers were told to pack up the project’s records into 1,800 boxes and place them in storage. 

A final report was never released.

Of course not.

3. If you're anything like me, then you looove a good free online comic story. So what, then, could be better than a rundown of the year's best free online comic stories? Thanks, io9, for bringing us the likes of...

Think of this as my Xmas present to y'all... cuz you sure ain't gettin' anything that costs me money! Cheers, ya bums! 

DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ DEC 22, 2014

1. If you're one of the many people who feel as though you should be really excited by the new film Inherent Vice, but are confused as to why, this Rolling Stone Magazine primer on the many worlds of Thomas Pynchon should help to hip you to one of the most worthwhile cults of the literary postwar era. Titled "Pynchon for Beginners", it starts:

Welcome to the club. This is precisely the mood that the 77-year-old writer has labored to create over eight revered novels and novellas since the mid-Sixties, pushing his adventurous readers off their pedestals of narrative security and trust in government. "He's fucking with you all the time," Anderson recently said of the “anonymous” novelist — the last publicly circulated picture of the author dates back to 1955 — and he means this as a compliment. At a slender 370 pages, Inherent Vice is the quickest way into Pynchon's oeuvre, itself the wildest adventure in postmodern letters. (The collected hardcover editions of his books weigh as much as an unruly eight-year-old in need of a nap.) So maybe it’s time to try him out. The good news: You're already halfway there if you live for rock & roll, enjoy a good conspiracy story and can go with the voluminous flow.

2. Thanks to my friend, Aussie author Christian Read, for pointing me towards this excellent essay about Carl Jung and the resurgence of Wotan Consciousness in the mid-century, featured on the excellent Madness and Civilization blog. Among the many intriguing thoughts found within:

When we look back to the time before 1914, we find ourselves living in a world of events which would have been inconceivable before the war. We were even beginning to regard war between civilized nations as a fable, thinking that such an absurdity would become less and less possible in our rational, internationally organized world. And what came after the war was a veritable witches’ Sabbath. 

...we shall have to wait some time before anyone is able to assess the kind of age that we are living in. 

...what is more than curious – indeed, piquant to a degree – is that an ancient God of storm and frenzy, the long quiescent Wotan, should awake, like an extinct volcano, to new activity, in a civilized country that had long been supposed to have outgrown the Middle Ages.

In fact, the above essay makes an excellent companion piece to the primer on Pynchon's fiction. What a coincidence!

3. For my friends on the Left, there has been scant good news over the last few decades to gladden their hearts. In a world where a relatively conservative politician like Barrack Obama is routinely derided as a Marxist revolutionary by the ignoramuses of the mainstream media, the idea of genuinely progressive socialist reform seems like an impossible dream. That's why recent political news out of Spain should give us all a little hope. In this wonderful essay, taken from one of his recent speeches, Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias explains how the Left around the world can make similar gains. 

The enemy wants nothing more than to laugh at you. You can wear a t-shirt with the hammer and sickle. You can even carry a huge flag, and then go back home with your flag, all while the enemy laughs at you. Because the people, the workers, they prefer the enemy to you. They believe him. They understand him when he speaks. They don’t understand you. And maybe you are right! Maybe you can ask your children to write that on your tombstone: “He was always right — but no one ever knew.” 

When you study successful transformational movements, you see that the key to success is to establish a certain identity between your analysis and what the majority feels. And that is very hard. It implies riding out contradictions. 

Do you think I have any ideological problem with a forty-eight hour or a seventy-two-hour wildcat strike? Not in the least! The problem is that organizing a strike has nothing to do with how badly you or I want to do it. It has to do with union strength, and both you and I are insignificant there... 

I’ve manned the picket lines in front of the bus depots in Madrid. The people there, at dawn, you know where they had to go? To work. They were no scabs. But they would be fired from their jobs, because at their jobs there were no unions to defend them. Because the workers who can defend themselves, like those in the shipyards, in the mines, they have strong unions. But the kids that work as telemarketers, or at pizza joints, or the girls working in retail, they cannot defend themselves.

Keep reading. There is a great message spelled out here.

DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST FOR DEC 18, 2014

1. Not so much suggested reading as suggested looking in this case, I urge you to check out this io9 story about artist Yong Ho Ji, who takes old, worn out vehicular tires, tears them to shreds, and then turns them into ridiculously beautiful things. Along with an extensive gallery of some of Yong's most beautiful artworks, there is also a short documentary about the artist and his work. Here is that film:

2. Speaking of ornate and beautiful objects, this incredibly detailed, exquisitely machined, combination desk and cabinet, hand-crafted for King Frederick William II by the celebrated Roentgen Brothers may just make you re-think your too-cool-for-school attitude towards the value and appeal of antique furniture!

One of the finest achievements of European furniture making, this cabinet is the most important product from Abraham and David Roentgen's workshop. A writing cabinet crowned with a chiming clock, it features finely designed marquetry panels and elaborate mechanisms that allow for doors and drawers to be opened automatically at the touch of a button. The Berlin cabinet is uniquely remarkable for its ornate decoration, mechanical complexity, and sheer size. This cabinet is from Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the exhibition Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens.

Take a gander for yourself!

3. All you slightly older cinema fans out there should read this wonderful remembrance of Alfred Hitchcock by his friend and fellow filmmaker David Freeman. Although occasionally agonizing to read, it's also quite wonderful in places. For instance, try not to be drawn in by this introduction:

He was a bit like the Eiffel Tower. You hear about it all your life, and when you finally see the damn thing, it looks so much like the postcards, it's difficult to see it fresh. Hitchcock's public self was so distinct that it was often impossible to know if I was dealing with the corporeal man or the invented persona. I think he sometimes got it confused, particularly in his storytelling. He was a well-known raconteur, and some of his stories were widely known and repeated - often by him. There were times when he seemed to feel obliged to tell Alfred Hitchcock stories. Sometimes he was at the top of his form and told them well; other times less so. I was aware of this and, as I came to see, so was he. With his high-waisted black suits--with trousers that rested above his enormous belly, leaving just a few inches of white shirt exposed and with a black tie tucked into his pants--he looked positively fictional, out of Dickens, perhaps, or a banker by Evelyn Waugh.

It gets better from there. Enjoy!

THE POWER PRINCIPLE II - PROPAGANDA ~ A CONCORDANCE

A CONCORDANCE 

or a series of notes and thoughts on 

THE POWER PRINCIPLE II - PROPAGANDA

a documentary by Scott Noble and Metanoia Films

The following notes were taken by myself during viewings of the film. The text presented includes some direct references to statements made on camera (indicated by quotation marks), as well as a number of observations, side references and potential avenues for further inquiry that came to mind as I watched. I do this because I believe this film to be an important document in the field of parapolitics, and anything I can do to help get it seen by more people - and, in particular, the RIGHT people - I see as worth doing. Secondly, I wanted to create an easy-to-use text and image based "study guide" that both documents and compliments the information presented in the film. As always, I leave it for you readers to decide whether or not I have succeeded on that count. - YOPJ 15/16/2014

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE AND FOLLOW 

THE CONCORDANCE BELOW!

The Power Principle II - Propaganda from S DN on Vimeo.

CAVEATS AND SUCH (00:00)

“This film contains controversial subject matter. Interview subjects and creators of some source material may not agree with certain views presented. The Power Principle is a non-profit documentary and has been released online for free.”

PREAMBLE

"The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the grotwh of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."

- Alex Carey

PART ONE - SETTING THE STAGE (00:00)

- We kick things off with a typically ham-fisted clip from an anti-Communist "educational" film from the 1950's...

CONTINUE READING AT USELESS EATER BLOG!

DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ DEC 17, 2014

1. It is always a cause for rejoicing when master documentarian Adam Curtis - the man who brought us such essential series as The Power of Nightmares, The Century of the Self, The Trap and All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace - takes to his blog in order to share his incredibly valuable insights into past and current events. In his most recent wide-ranging post, he discusses the influence of American Marxist thinker, Murray Bookchin, on the recently-updated Utopian ambitions of the Kurdish "terrorist" organization PKK. 

Bookchin was born in New York in 1921. In the 1930s he joined the American Communist Party. But after the second world war he began to question the whole theory that underpinned revolutionary Marxism.

What changed everything for him was the experience of working in a factory. Bookchin had gone to work for General Motors - and he realized as he watched his fellow workers that Marx, Lenin and all the other theorists were wrong about the working class.

The Marxist theory said that once working men and women came together in factories the scales would fall from their eyes - and they would see clearly how they were being oppressed. They would also see how they could bond together to become a powerful force that would overthrow the capitalists.

Bookchin saw that the very opposite was happening. This was because the factory was organised as a hierarchy - a system of organisation and control that the workers lived with and experienced every second of the day. As they did so, that hierarchical system became firmly embedded in their minds - and made them more passive and more accepting of their oppression.

But Bookchin didn’t do what most disillusioned American Marxists in the 1950s did - either run away to academia, or become a cynical neo-conservative. Instead he remained an optimist and decided to completely rework revolutionary theory.

Curtis eventually segues into a discussion about the various "perfect societies" as imagined by some of America's leading post-war think tank technocrats - people like Herman Kahn and B.F. Skinner - including video footage of their chilling predictions (perscriptions?) that will sound chillingly familiar to Modern ears. I mean, just check this insanity out...

Anyhoo, if any of these vitally important issues is of interest to you, then I urge you to check out Curtis' blog post for yourself, and make sure to watch all the videos and follow all the links with which he stuffs his latest message. I also suggest you bookmark it and check back every once in a while.

***

2. So... according to this rather unflattering exposé, it turns out James "The Amazing" Randi - world-famous "debunker" and hero to "rational skeptics" the world over - is nothing but a great big liar with his pants on fire! And a self-admitted one, at that. Wow... you could knock me over with a feather!

3. And, finally for today, just look at this 19th century underwater ballroom in an English lake...LOOK AT IT!!!

This is under a lake, and those are GLASS bricks!

DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ DEC 16, 2014

1. Apocalyptic super-villain scenarios Yesterday they were science fiction. Today, they're (almost) science fact!

Apocalyptic weapons are currently the domain of world powers. But this is set to change. Within a few decades, small groups — and even single individuals — will be able to get their hands on any number of extinction-inducing technologies. As shocking as it sounds, the world could be destroyed by a small team or a person acting alone. Here's how.

Just one of many delightful scenarios.

2. In keeping with today's End of the World theme - and also from the intermittently excellent io9 blog -  here's a handy-dandy, clip-and-save list of the Top Ten Horrifying Technologies That Should Not Be Allowed to Exist! My personal favorite comes in at Number Ten: Hell Engineering!

Some futurists make the case for paradise engineering — the use of advanced technologies, particularly consciousness uploading and virtual reality, to create a heaven on Earth. But if you can create heaven, you can create hell. It's a prospect that's particularly chilling when you consider lifespans of indefinite length, along with the nearly boundless possibilities for psychological and physical anguish. ... Why anyone would want to develop such a thing is beyond me. It's yet another reason for banning the development of artificial superintelligence — and the onset of the so-called Roko's Basilisk problem.

3. Tiz the season... for this intriguing look back at the real history of Christmas. There's a ton of intriguing historical trivia to be enjoyed in this document, just so long as you're not terribly attached to your presuppositions. For instance, did you know that Joseph A. Fitzmyer – Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America, member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and former president of the Catholic Biblical Association –  "guesses that Jesus birth occurred on September 11, 3 BCE"? I don't know about you, but that sets yer old pal Jerky's conspiratorial little brain to spinning at 33 and 1/3 rpm.

THE POWER PRINCIPLE I - EMPIRE: A CONCORDANCE

CLIP AND SAVE FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

A CONCORDANCE 

or a series of notes and thoughts on 

THE POWER PRINCIPLE I - EMPIRE

a documentary by Scott Noble (2003) 

The following notes were taken by myself during viewings of the film. The text presented includes some direct references to statements made on camera (indicated by quotation marks), as well as a number of observations, side references and potential avenues for further inquiry that came to mind as I watched. I do this because I believe this film to be an important document in the field of parapolitics, and anything I can do to help get it seen by more people - and, in particular, the RIGHT people - I see as worth doing. Secondly, as I did with my relatively popular concordance for The Net, I wanted to create an easy-to-use text and image based "concordance" that both documents and compliments the information presented in the film. As always, I leave it for you readers to decide whether or not I have succeeded on that count. - YOPJ 15/12/2014

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE AND FOLLOW 

THE CONCORDANCE BELOW!

The Power Principle 1 - Empire from S DN on Vimeo.

CAVEATS AND SUCH (00:00)

“This film contains controversial subject matter. Interview subjects and creators of some source material may not agree with certain views presented. The Power Principle is a non-profit documentary and has been released online for free.”

PREAMBLE

In the years between the end of World War II and 1989, when it fell, 171 people were killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall. With the Cold War over, why didn't Eisenhower's prophesied Military Industrial Complex collapse? Why did Clinton’s promised "Peace Dividend" fail to appear in any truly significant way? Why did most of the meager cuts to the military budget simply migrate over to private enterprise, where tax-payers still ended up footing the bill?

Ah, but all those pressing questions became totally moot on September 11, 2001. The USA now spends over 1 TRILLION DOLLARS a year on the military. As much as the rest of the world combined. There are over 800 military bases in 150+ countries. More money is now spent on air conditioning for American military personnel than the entire budget of NASA. Cuts to war spending are now all but unthinkable.

This film sets out to examine the reasons why.

PART ONE – EMPIRE

CONTINUE READING AT USELESS EATER BLOG!

DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ DEC 15, 2014

1. Remember that robot uprising I was always freaking out over back when I was writing the Daily Dirt on a relatively daily basis? In the years since the Dirt went tits up, that "trope" or "meme" or "idiom" or what have you has become somewhat of a cliche', not to mention an increasingly probable possibility, if the people at DefenseZone.com are to be believed. In attempting to explain why A.I. are pretty much destined to wreak havoc on mankind, they write:

In the case of utility function, action and stimulus form a sort of feedback loop. Actions that produce stimuli consistent with fulfilling the program’s primary goal will result in more of that sort of behavior. That will include gaining more resources to do it.

For a sufficiently complex or empowered system, that decision-making would include not allowing itself to be turned off, take, for example, a robot with the primary goal of playing chess. 

“When roboticists are asked by nervous onlookers about safety, a common answer is ‘We can always unplug it!’ But imagine this outcome from the chess robot’s point of view,” writes Omohundro. “A future in which it is unplugged is a future in which it cannot play or win any games of chess. This has very low utility and so expected utility maximisation will cause the creation of the instrumental subgoal of preventing itself from being unplugged. If the system believes the roboticist will persist in trying to unplug it, it will be motivated to develop the subgoal of permanently stopping the roboticist,” he writes. 

In other words, the more logical the robot, the more likely it is to fight you to the death.

Anyhoo, if my efforts had anything to do with the increase in awareness of this looming catastrophe, then that would have to be my third proudest moment in terms of Jerky LeBoeuf leaving his greasy thumb-print on the global zeitgeist. The runner up in that category would be my coining of the term "mansap", which I came up with in my porn copywriting days as a new word for semen. But the one I'm most proud of is my crazy neo-expletive: "Jesus Fucking Nailholes!" I see it starting to creep into conversations, and it makes me damn proud, let me tell you.

2. Looks like some "boffins" (that's British-speak for "scientists") have figured out a way to freeze light for one whole minute. Not sure how, exactly, but I'm pretty sure this breakthrough is going to play a big role in the coming war with our Shiny Metal Overlords (see above). Also, be sure to read the entire linked page, because there are some awesome videos full of scientific goodness at the bottom of it. Videos like this one, about how to break the speed of light:

3. Ah! So light and frothy with the suggested readings today! Perhaps I should commit my own version of the Ice Bucket Challenge by plunging you headlong into an incredibly depressing dispatch from George Packer in the most recent New Yorker about exactly how and why the press is LESS free today than it's ever been before. It begins...

In the worldwide movement away from democracy, perhaps the most vulnerable institution is the free press, and the most disposable people are journalists. If they’re doing their job right, they can have few friends in powerful places. Journalists become reliably useful to governments, corporations, or armed groups only when they betray their calling. They seldom even have a base of support within the general public. In some places, it’s impossible to report the truth without making oneself an object of hatred and a target of violence for one sector of society or another.

And it only gets more grim from that point on, concluding, in part...

Despite its promise of liberation, democratization, and leveling, the digital revolution, in undermining traditional forms of media, has actually produced a greater concentration of power in fewer hands, with less organized counter-pressure. As a result, the silencing of the press, otherwise known as censorship -- whether by elected autocrats, armed extremists, old-fashioned dictators, or prosecutors stopping leaks with electronic evidence -- is actually easier and more prevalent today than it was twenty years ago.

Not that there's much we can do about it other than hanging on and doing our best to be honest in all things (a promise that I hereby make to anyone reading any of my blogs). But I do sincerely believe that it's important for all of us to be aware of exactly how dire the situation really is. It's easy for me, here in Toronto, Canada, but maybe not so much for our old journalistic pal J.J. in Istanbul. So keep him and others like him in your thoughts and prayers.

DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ DEC 14, 2014

1. To those of you who found my previously published article about how Glenn Beck thinks the mostly-unread works of philosophy professor Eugene Thacker are part of a massive worldwide progressivist conspiracy, you might also enjoy the Comics Alliance article "Understanding True Detective", which goes into great detail about where that show's writers and producers really got all that nihilistic philosophy - not to mention huge chunks of plot and dialogue. Here's a hint: Alan Moore and his more esoteric works fit snugly in the center of this Satanic spiderweb of influence.

2. Have you heard about the far-right conservative movement filmmaker "Molotov" Mitchell and his new blended "Black Power" / "anti-abortion" propaganda flick Gates of Hell? Here's the trailer...

...and here's a synopsis:

Three years in the making, "Gates of Hell" is a documentary from the year 2016 that chronicles the crimes of a band of domestic terrorists known as the Zulu 9. Finnish filmmaker Ani Juva travels to the United States to better understand the mysterious black power assassins, the unexpected eugenics conspiracy theory that drove them to commit extreme acts of violence and how America's political landscape was transformed overnight. Blending real history and real public figures with a fictitious (yet plausible) future, it is safe to say that you have never seen a film like "Gates of Hell".

And here's a pretty good article about the flick and it's producer.

3. Wanna have your minds completely blown? Well then, check this out:

These are words. If you are reading this it is because you have been taught to recognize that letters, when strung into certain arrangements, form words which are understood to mean things. In this way we are able to share ideas, feelings, truths, lies and adventures both real and fictional. But words only have the power of the meanings we assign them. Break them back down into letters and see that they are merely symbols with an arbitrary link to sound, utterly meaningless on their own.

The written word itself is estimated to be only about 8,000 years old. In the last 1,000, English has changed so dramatically that we require full translations for most texts from that period: Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Piers Plowman all bear little resemblance to our contemporary English. There are texts, such as those of the Indus Valley Civilization, which are already illegible after only 5,000 years. By comparison the half-life of a small percentage of radioactive wastes stored underground is estimated to be upwards of 10,000 years.  

In the late 1980s the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico put together an incredible panel comprised of anthropologists, semiologists, designers, astronomers and a variety of experts from other fields tasked with “developing design guidelines for markers and messages to communicate with future societies about the location and danger of the buried wastes”. The idea was that the radioactive waste they had stored underground would outlast our current understanding of civilization. The words and symbols we would associate with danger and radiation may not be intelligible to future generations and any signs we may put up could be either meaningless to or misinterpreted with the likelihood of any message conveying its meaning in 200,000 years diminishing almost to nil.

Keep reading this astonishing article at Fact.co.uk. You won't regret it, I promise.