Who is here so far?

[waldopaper]

more gizmos (above) to put in your post. don't know yet if editing is an option. i may just end up being the maytag repairman out here in Fort Apache.

[curt]

I is, you is, we is.

[waldopaper]

That Yankee Doodly Dum
(Brother, can you paradigm?)

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum…

A paradigm shifted. The War was not yet six months old, and Peace broke out . What happened? Four more years of war happened, and then the Great Depression and then another War and then the “Cold War” followed by whatever the hell it is that’s happening now in November of 2007. What happened? What is happening? What is going to happen next?

You can sift through the links yourself and try to find the causes. Good luck with that. We can not even agree on current events, unable to see the blizzard because all those tiny snowflakes are in the way. This is why models and metaphors, pictures and paradigms are sometimes useful; such things allow us to agree momentarily on the collective blizzard while holding fast to our own individual snowflake. “Paradigm” is a fancy word for the picture that most of us agree upon… until we decide to agree upon something else.

The paradigm shifted. Consider those poor blighters back in the Flanders trenches in 1914. For them, the “war” went from being flags, drums and trumpets to ice, lice and bombs. “To hell with this,” they said, and needed no books or treatises to realize they were caught up in a very bad idea. Most did not “benefit” from this macro-perspective, and that’s why “…In all of the following years of the war, artillery bombardments were ordered on Christmas Eve to ensure that there were no further lulls in the combat.”

The paradigm shifted. Art is supposed to be a reflection of the greater vision, isn’t it? Consider three popular tunes from the Great Depression going from dimes to cherries to money. What IS “money,” anyway? “Don't take it serious; it's too mysterious.” How can you lose what you never owned? The Authoritarians tell us otherwise of course, and soon we join the choir. “Half a million boots went slogging through Hell, and I was the kid with the drum!”

That’s the US; the kid with the drum with ice, lice and bombs for the whole world. When the paradigm shifts the world may finally say, “Old Man Depression you are through, you done us wrong.” Kid with the drum to Old Man Depression; see the shift? Shift happens. Maybe the shift is the year’s early Christmas Story . Maybe THIS time we can put it on the RADIO !

Maybe this time we will not be so Yankee Doodly Dum.

(wow. looks a lot better when you can embed the links!)

[pan]

"can't find" the other site. Didn't even get the Donut this time.

[BO]

Goo Goo Achoo. 'Scuse me, I just sneezed.

Greetings from Maui. 10 Fucking hours to get here. I'm exhausted. I'm so damn old, I can't hardly travel anymore.

OK, fresh start. This is good.

[Mouse]

Actually I prefer this


Hello you beautiful darlings. Goodness, to think I might have lost such effervescent company.... Where's Bohica?

[pan]

Bo is Bohica at the other site was Bobo4u at the previous one.

[Mouse]

Ah, probably should have realised. Bit slow on the uptake here. Which is why you don't hear from me often. It takes a long time for me to process the things I learn about when I dip into your conversations and follow the links.
Also there's bound to be a huge amount of repression going on here. I'm in England after all.

[waldopaper]

Maui? Wowee! EM- saw your new painting... would have posted a comment but my nasty icon would have clashed with such a thing of beauty! Bend over here it comes again... talk on tribe of charging $5 a month... so are they gonna pay ME for cleaning all the adaware tracking cookies outta me pooter every other day? Anybody else got this nasty rash of Explorer pop-ups?

Something about this Ed Naha piece grabbed me...

At the cemetery, a military honor guard was present. They took the American flag from Dad’s coffin and folded it. A bugler played “Taps.” Only the bugler didn’t have a real horn. He had a Mattel deal that had a pre-recorded version of “Taps” embedded in it. The soldier raised it to his lips and pushed a button. You see, between all the WW II vets passing and the deaths of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military has run out of buglers.

One of the honor guards, a petite young woman, presented the folded flag to my younger brother, saluting and saying that “President George W. Bush” was honoring my father’s service to his country.

A sense of anger welled up within me even as my tears fell. A phony President and a bogus bugler. Welcome to America.

I bet the Brits don't use bogus buglers...

[BO]

Wow, nice to know I have a fan. That made my day.

56 yo today. Typing this from our lanai while I look out over the gardens, pool, ocean and islands beyond. Absolutely fucking gorgeous. 80 degrees, crystal clear blue sky.

Yep, the credit cards are getting maxed out. These temporary alternate realities are pretty damn expensive.

[curt]

Today ? Well, gratz and all. Shit, Bo man, you is real old. Right behind ya, so don't call the poh lease.

To Tribe or not to Tribe. No question at all. "Spread out! Secure the parameter." Did I mispell that right ? "Keep moving, man. Next time he swings his right, come from below. Knock his fucking head off, got it ?!"

Tribe is out for the count. 5 US phonys a moon ? Hell no. I've always been kinda scottish in my on-net ways.

How the fuck (is this word allowed here?) did you guys embed the videos ? For mohammed's sake, embedded URL links and now videos.? Duh ?

"Okay, when you see him come around the corner with his cup in hand.....I'll be right behind him to give him a bumb from the right. Your job is to come up from the left, grab the cup and run. Don't lose any of the cups contents, got it ?!?"

"only if I get to keep the cup!"

"Okay, fuck the cup. Grab the spoils and split!"

"but I want the cup"

"Fuck the cup, I say. Fuck the cup!"

"wouldn't that hurt?"

[waldopaper]

gratz to ye both for stayin married and stayin alive. they're sort of co-dependent states for me these days. and im too tired to think of a good transition... so... ever read Tim Gatto's stuff? He seems to be a sincere-but-late-to-catch-on kinda guy... and he does a good rant. He's sulking in his tent now because the Snarking Chump readers piled on about being "pro-military" or maybe it was anti-anti-military.

He got me diverted into this whole deal about the Norman Dodd interview... the video is on Gatto's site, but you can read the transcript here. Somehow gets interpreted as a plot to merge the US with the Soviet Union since 1909... neat trick since the USSR did not exist until after 1917... but that's probably some kind of textichal snarl. Gatto is annoyed with the shithouse-rat-crazy $459 billion defense budget... and has decided there may be something to the 9-11 Truth thing.

Here are the lines that probably annoyed the Chimpoids: "My heart doesn’t go out to the people that want us to become an anti-military country. My sympathies don’t go out to those that would call our troops baby-killers." Comes pretty close to the Spitting Image Myth without actually going there. Made me remember several times recently being asked if I was "anti-military" when it began to dawn that this was the same as being "anti-american," and i guess these days i would plead guilty to both.

Gatto is kind of a barometer... and lately he's been quite a cheerleader for saving our "democracy." Waiting to see when he finally realizes it's GONE.

[BO]

I dunno man, I'm thinking a military can be a good thing if it throws the kind of despots we got in Washington outta office.

But to defend our military now? I suppose if you're retired military--like Mr. Gatto--you gotta defend your heritige otherwise your whole identity would go up in smoke.

A military is a good thing when you need to battle evil. But, kind of a bad thing in the hands of evil. As much as we'd like to, we can't deny that evil does exist.

It's just too bad we've got to fight the same evil over and over. And now it appears to be us. That's gotta be tough on a guy who spent a career thinking he was defending something that wasn't really there.