God is the Steady State out of which the Big Bang is spoken.

Don’t miss out on the end-of-world clearance on all remaining 2022-2025 Renaults pic.twitter.com/Z8efbAYDLa

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 3, 2022

TWO BY TED GIOIA: I Presided at the Birth of Google – by Ted Gioia So I couldn’t have predicted, back in 1999, that Google would engage in mass surveillance and operate as a trillion-dollar broker of its own users’ private and sensitive data. I couldn’t have guessed that the company would kneel down before totalitarian regimes in its constant search for bigger markets and more profits. I couldn’t have foreseen that pirates and crooks of all stripes would use Google as a tool in their own criminal enterprises. I never imagined that Google would deliberately fill up its own search results with advertisements and worthless links. But those shameful eventualities were all implicit in an enterprise that chased after financial returns above all other metrics. If that’s your goal, core principles and altruistic values come at too high of a price.

Jack Kerouac at 100: Part 1 (of 2) – by Ted Gioia Long before Kerouac wrote On the Road, Kerouac had already fantasized about a liberating journey. His mother decorated his boyhood bedroom with the nursery rhyme motto: “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,” and he apparently took the admonition to heart at every phase of his life, whether eluding tacklers during his brief but promising football career—which might have blossomed into genuine stardom at Columbia University until a broken leg and his own restlessness derailed his sports ambitions —or later moving to his own personal beat on the roads of America. . . .

And it’s even worse for John Updike, Norman Mailer, and Saul Bellow—maybe the three most celebrated American novelists of their day, yet now missing in action from course syllabi, magazine essays, and (most telling of all) bookshop shelves. Much the same might be in store for J.D. Salinger and even Ernest Hemingway, who both hang on as important names, but are more often mocked than praised in the overheated world of social media lit crit. Harper Lee might even get cancelled, a mystifying development for a writer considered so forward-looking just a short while ago. Philip Roth still has devoted fans and a seemingly impregnable reputation, but in a strange twist, his high-profile biography got pulled from the market just 15 days after release.

seriously Mexico, what happened pic.twitter.com/DTnpoaeFdX

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 31, 2022

Here is the abstract (with my paragraphifications and emphasis) from the peer-reviewed paper “The unbearable heaviness of climate coloniality” appearing in Political Geography by someone named Sultana. –

The extremely uneven and inequitable impacts of climate change mean that differently-located people experience, respond to, and cope with the climate crisis and related vulnerabilities in radically different ways.

The coloniality of climate seeps through everyday life across space and time, weighing down and curtailing opportunities and possibilities through global racial capitalism, colonial dispossessions, and climate debts.

Decolonizing climate needs to address the complexities of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, international development, and geopolitics that contribute to the reproduction of ongoing colonialities through existing global governance structures, discursive framings, imagined solutions, and interventions.

This requires addressing both epistemic violences and material outcomes. By weaving through such mediations, I offer an understanding of climate coloniality that is theorized and grounded in lived experiences.

[continue reading…]

Video just released. Leonard Cohen in the 74th year of his age. (Full scene, speakers up. But that’s just me. YMMV. )

Backstory: 2008 tour — To recoup the money his ex-manager had stolen, Cohen embarked on his first world tour in 15 years. He said that being “forced to go back on the road to repair the fortunes of my family and myself … [was] a most fortunate happenstance because I was able to connect with living musicians. And I think it warmed some part of my heart that had taken on a chill.”

The tour began on May 11 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and was extended until late 2010. The schedule of the first leg in mid-2008 encompassed Canada and Europe, including performances at The Big Chill, the Montreal Jazz Festival, and on the Pyramid Stage at the 2008 Glastonbury Festival on June 29, 2008. His performance at Glastonbury was hailed by many as the highlight of the festival,and his performance of “Hallelujah” as the sun set received a rapturous reception and a lengthy ovation from a packed Pyramid Stage field. ***

I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, now the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah [continue reading…]

While you were out: 1975 called with a memo from 1919. Please review ASAP.

MEANWHILE, 2022 IS NOT EVEN HALF OVER (BET YOU DIDN’T HAVE MONKEY POX ON YOUR BINGO CARD).

The power of Corn Dog compels you!

The Midway Trinity: dog, the corn, the condiment

Memorial Day Weekend in Chico is Silver Dollar Fair Weekend. This means I can visit my gastronomic holy-of-holies, HotDog On a Stick aka Corn Dogs sizzling fresh from the deep fryer with unlimited mustard. The outside is a crisp, crunchy layer of deep-fried dough over a soft fresh puffy dough wrapped around a dog and the whole slathered in French’s Yellow Mustard. No Grey Poupon need apply. Ever! For reasons I cannot explain I yearn for this single bit of Carny Food. If I am in range of “Hot Dog On a Stick” I detour for wherever it may be. The the challenge becomes the consuming of the corn dog without leaving half a jar of mustard in your beard. (Never a good look on a geezer, I dare say.)

But the Silver Dollar Fair is not limited to one single corn dog. No. It is the coming-out party for Chico at the cusp of summer. There are bull auctions and sheep shearing shows.  Better still, you see all, and I do mean all, of your fellow citizens at the Zoo Fair.

“Life’s Rich Pageant” [continue reading…]

Amber Heard’s attorney reveals the actress is ‘absolutely not’ able to pay $8m damages to Johnny Depp and plans to appeal and insists the jury was tainted by social media during toxic six-week court battle

Meanwhile, Depp evidently was having such a good time they opened the doors to Toon Town:

*Portrait of Charlotte du Val d’Ognes* (1801)   “And indeed, juxtaposed with the couple at the painting’s vanishing point — heads canted in amorous engagement — it seems as if the artist’s solo absorption illuminates this artwork, her unseen canvas a spotlight bringing the world into focus.”

The most crippling defect of modern Western society is its lack of grandeur, its dearth of heroism, its miserable cravenness, its elevation of the basest male detritus, its alignment to suit the uncontrolled feminine desire for security and safety.

— QuintusCurtius (@QuintusCurtius) February 23, 2021

But real diversity is the last thing this new dispensation will tolerate.   Instead, like all colonizing systems in all times and places, it is committed to destroying it wherever it is found. The rising system of universal values and universal control cannot tolerate genuine cultural diversity any more than its elites can tolerate dissent from reactionaries, anarchists, or anyone in between. All must be homogenized, from streetscapes to language to opinions. Everything must go nations, local economies, local communities, attachment to the past, dreams of a human future. All the Olds must burn so that something new can be born: something we can all feel rising around us, even as we bicker or squabble or turn our faces away, hoping we will be rescued from what is surely approaching. — Paul Kingsnorth, “Saturn’s Children”

The greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than that they are in fashion. — Samuel Johnson

Do In-N-Out Burger Food Containers Include Bible Verses? | The hamburger and cheeseburger wrappers point to Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

He said it would happen… and it is. | And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold. Et quoniam abundavit iniquitas, refrigescet caritas multorum.

The Stelvio Pass is a mountain pass in northern Italy bordering Switzerland. At 9,045 ft. above sea level, it’s the highest paved mountain pass in the Eastern Alps, and the second highest in the Alps. pic.twitter.com/jYwzobVYjs

— Dr. Clayton Forrester (@DrClaytonForre1) June 2, 2022

TFor me, literature allows a common reference point for future discussions.   Think of how many times George Orwell’s “1984” has been referenced, or Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” or Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago.” Among the patriots, it’s hard to have a conversation about substantive matters where “Enemies Foreign and Domestic,” “The Civil Defense Manual,” John Ross’ “Unintended Consequences” or Kurt Schlicter’s “Indian Country” aren’t mentioned or, at least, recalled mentally, during the conversation. [continue reading…]

Oh, the country’s in the very best of glands.

Before you get to the endtimes where you’ll “eat bugs and be happy” you need to be moved into the TwilightMeat Zone; that place beyond space and time where the Impossible Burger becomes, still impossible, but something you can find in your friendly but still satanic grocer’s freezer.

I hear all the calls for purity rising from the “Don’t Be Cruel” cadre that is forever forswearing “meat.” At the same time, you’ve got to note that for a club of vegan Karens they demand a lot of food that looks like meat but isn’t. They love to eat their “meatless” lie right down to the last “LammChop.”

I’ve got a folder full of fake meat and other food that is not the food it says it is, but some sort of plant-based replicant. All of these come to you softly stating that they look (and “O Yum!” taste) like meat but that they are really made of the food that real meat eats. You all know the coy Chik’N words making for the soft lie. We all have seen the impossibility of Impossible Beef marketing what was once known, honestly, as “VeggieBurger.”

That said I was taken aback to find the next step in moving you towards government pink foam food served in troughs in the armrests of your LayZboy, “plant-based” plant food. There I was in Discount (“Where off-brand or over-produced foods go to die.”) Groceries’ “Organic” section when I spied this offering at five bucks:

Ready To Eat Rice in “Rice Style”? Really?  What can that mean? Let’s take a closer look:

Konjac Flour? KONJAC? What the hell is konjac flour? As it turns out konjac seems to be a flour that either reduces what you eliminate via healthy revulsion reduction (you eat less phony rice) or via other means of elimination out the front or back at high velocity.

What does konjac flour taste like?Konjac has very little taste of its own, and is prized in the East for its texture far more than its flavour – it has a very neutral, slightly salted taste. Now that the West has discovered konjac, it’s been put to a variety of other uses, mainly to create healthy meals for the purpose of weight-loss.

But what is this “new and improved rice” really? It’s a food in a circular loop forever:

It is “rice” (which is a plant) made from plants (which are not the rice plant.). It is a Frank N’Food. It is, succinctly put, “The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.”

Somewhere in this insane and degraded land, there are, I suppose, people who are feasting on Miracle Rice while those who made and marketed this glob of goop are feasting on Prime Rib (“the end cut”) at some Argentinian meat palace. Both these sets of people must be hunted and cast them down to hell, and delivered into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.

If they aren’t we will eat the “ANIMAL-FREE ICE CREAM” we so richly deserve.

PS:
[continue reading…]

One of my constant readers, Jen Logueflower sends in this Memorial Day contribution, sung on Memorial Day Eve across the street from the Avenue of Flags at Graceland Cemetery, Mineral Point, Wisconsin, America, in the Year of Our Lord, 2021.

Backstory: William Page 1868-1942 great-great-grandfather was a member of the House of Burgesses of the Province of Virginia. He was also descended from the 10th US president, John Tyler. At 13, began his national public service as a page. It was the beginning of a 61-year career.

At 49 he submitted an entry to a patriotic contest as America entered WWI. The goal of the contest was to have a concise but complete statement of American political faith. Inspired on the way home from church, having just recited the Apostles’ Creed Page drew on Declaration of Independence, Preamble to Constitution, Gettysburg Address, and Edward Everett Hale’s 1863 short story ‘The Man Without a Country.”

His creed was chosen from more than 3000 other entries.

The Text: “I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect Union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its Flag, and to defend it against all enemies.
     –Accepted by House of Representatives, April 3rd, 1918

“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

Via Never Yet Melted ｻ The Dry Martini who pours a double and settles in at Dry Martini | The New Yorker

The Martini is in, the Martini is back—or so young friends assure me. At Angelo and Maxie’s, on Park Avenue South, a thirtyish man with backswept Gordon Gekko hair lowers his cell as the bartender comes by and says, “Eddie, gimme a Bombay Sapphire, up.” At Patroon, a possibly married couple want two dirty Tanquerays—gin Martinis straight up, with the bits and leavings of a bottle of olives stirred in. At Nobu, a date begins with a saketini—a sake Martini with (avert your eyes) a sliver of cucumber on top. At Lotus, at the Merc Bar, and all over town, extremely thin young women hold their stemmed cocktail glasses at a little distance from their chests and avidly watch the shining oil twisted out of a strip of lemon peel spread across the pale surface of their gin or vodka Martini like a gas stain from an idling outboard. They are thinking Myrna Loy, they are thinking Nora Charles and Ava Gardner, and they are keeping their secret, which is that it was the chic shape of the glass—the slim narcissus stalk rising to a 1939 World’s Fair triangle above—that drew them to this drink. Before their first Martini ever, they saw themselves here with an icy Mart in one hand, sitting on a barstool, one leg crossed over the other, in a bar small enough so that a cigarette can be legally held in the other, and a curl of smoke rising above the murmurous conversation and the laughter. Heaven.

… RTWT AT Dry Martini | The New Yorker

Oh beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife
Who more than self, their country loved
And mercy more than life
America, America may God thy gold refine
‘Til all success be nobleness
And every gain divined

And you know when I was in school
We used to sing it something like this, listen here

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain
But now wait a minute, I’m talking about
America, sweet America
You know, God done shed his grace on thee
He crowned thy good, yes he did, in brotherhood
From sea to shining sea

You know, I wish I had somebody to help me sing this
(America, America, God shed his grace on thee)
America, I love you America, you see
My God he done shed his grace on thee

And you oughta love him for it
‘Cause he, he, he, he crowned thy good
He told me he would, with brotherhood
(From sea to shining Sea)
Oh Lord, oh Lord, I thank you Lord
(Shining sea)

Russian Forces Push Into Pivotal City in Eastern Ukraine KYIV, Ukraine—Russian forces advanced Monday into the center of Severodonetsk, one of the last Ukrainian strongholds in the eastern Donbas region, where Moscow is now concentrating its offensive.

The battle for Severodonetsk has in many ways resembled the fight for Mariupol, where Russian-backed forces worked to encircle the city while constant shelling reduced most buildings to rubble.

The fight underscores the central role of artillery in the east of Ukraine as Russia tries to avoid losing more manpower in urban fighting. The city’s fall would likely free up Russian soldiers for their next assault on the Ukrainian cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, which would be the last redoubts of Ukrainian forces in the east.

Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk region, which together with neighboring Donetsk makes up the Donbas region, said Monday morning that all critical infrastructure in Severodonetsk had been destroyed, as had 60% of the residential housing. Speaking on Ukrainian television, he described the pattern of the battle: several hours of Russian shelling, followed by a push by troops to advance further into the city.

“The smell of corpses is constant, because they do not take away the bodies,” Mr. Haidai said. “They are firing everything in the arsenal of the Russian Federation.” Ukrainian troops were trying to hold out until more heavy weapons could be delivered, he said.

And the war grinds on . . . Russia-Ukraine War Live: Latest News

Lest the Forgetting grow ever deeper…

Now the sun’s gone to hell
And the moon’s riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it’s written in the starlight
And every line in your palm
We are fools to make war
On our brothers in arms…