CANADIAN POLITICS WINNIPEG:

HARPER ESCAPES RIDICULE BY THE SKIN OF HIS TEETH:

Here it was last Tuesday, and Molly was zipping along the roads of Winnipeg dodging the spring crop of Grand Canyon sized potholes. It was local news time on the radio, and one item caught my interest, even more than the ever deceptive "puddles" that could easily be a car swallowing shaft entrance to a pit so deep you can see a red coloured guy with horns, a tail and cloven hoofs at the bottom.


Now just for the info of non-Canadians we are into an federal election campaign, and Stephen Harper, the leader of the Conservative Party, was making a pit stop in this benighted town. Seems Sneaky Stevie was up to having a little star glitter rubbed off on him, and his apparatchiks arranged that he would visit the home of popular culture wonder Maria Aragon in what one media report called "a rough, west-central Winnipeg neighbourhood". Now "rough" and "west central" are largely synonymous in this town.


Aragon is a ten year old girl who went straight to the heart of pop culture celebrity last February when a video posted to her sister's You Tube account of her performance of Lady Gaga's song 'Born This Way' caught Lady Gaga's attention. LG posted a twitter link to the video, and within 6 days it had received over 26 million views (It now stands at about 27.4 million views-Molly ). The rest is history. On March 3 Aragon performed with LG in Toronto. She has also appeared on the Ellen Degeneres show.


What does all this mean gentle reader ? Well...Lady Gaga just so happens to be the most followed person on Twitter in the whole big world. Personally I have little doubt that there are at least ten times as many people in the world who now know of Maria Aragon as compared to people who would know who on Earth Stephen Harper is, let alone pick him out of a lineup of other corporate criminals. This Aragon kid is BIG, and her appearances have probably increased the number of people in the world who know there is a place called Winnipeg by over 50 times.


Well Sneaky Stevie isn't going to let an opportunity like this go by. His local flunkies rapidly contact the Aragon family and "offer" them a media spot of 'Maria Meets Stephen". Now understand that Stevie is known for many things but definitely not for his kind, gentle, forgiving nature. Obvious exploitative political plug or not this sort of thing would be called "Un'offerta che non potrà rifutare" in the mountains of Sicily.


The day arrives, and so does Stevie. The first jolt they get is when the Aragon family insists that everybody, media, flunkies (campaign workers) and even the Harpers, have to remove their shoes before entering. I honestly love these people. Then it's Stephen and Maria at the piano as she sings out her version of 'Born This Way'. Now understand that said song has a very clear and direct point about the acceptability of gay love and sex. It's also, however, the song that made Maria famous so Harper keeps that old fundamentalist concrete plug firmly up his ass and doesn't vary his facial expression one tiny bit. What, after all, is a little fundamentalist so-called "morality" when votes are at stake ? Stevie got through it though I suspect he had to spend two hours on the can that night to finally pass that plug.


Almost done, but then Stevie slips on the banana peel. Somebody from the crowd of media and hacks suggests he take a turn at the piano himself and sing a duet with Maria. "Hot ziggedy zam", thought Harper, a photo-op beyond belief. Understand that Harper fancies himself something of a musician and singer. To be fair he is OK, but a combo of Glen Gould and Pavarotti he is not.


"Do you know any Beetles' tunes says Harper to the little girl. A sweet innocent voice pipes up, "Only 'Imagine'". SLAM; Speaking of Imagine I imagine the sound of the trap closing on Sneaky. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit", he thinks. Now understand that it is one thing to sit quietly through a rendition of a song saying that gay people are OK. It is quite another to have to join in and mouth the words to 'Imagine' which pretty well runs the full gamut of things Harper dislikes. Especially as the song was written while Lennon was in his full lefty phase. Having recovered from an almost terminal case of chintzy new age religiosity, Lennon felt obliged, like an ex-alcoholic or an ex-smoker, to throw his atheism into the song with all the subtlety of a front end loader.


You can practically hears the gears whirling and see the sparks flying off Sneaky's head as his weasel-like brain frantically tries to find a way out of this dilemma. Here's the problem. Singing the actual words of the song will not endear him to other members of the local Ottawa congregation of the Blessed Reformed Pentecostal Evangelical Church of the Holy Inquisitor. Whisper, whisper, gossip, gossip. On the other hand both refusing or actually singing different words in the offending portions will make him a laughing stock not just nationally but probably internationally as well. Stevie can see his brilliant little photo-op circling the drain and threatening to make him a world wide laughing stock.


What to do ? The correct answer would have been to lie and say he didn't know the song and suggest another singer. Stevie, however, panics. First he tries, "do you know any other Beetles' songs ? What about 'Hey Jude' ? "No, only 'Imagine'", says the sweet childish voice.


By this time I'm practically ecstatic. Now I have to admit to a personality fault here. It's the reason why I would make a piss poor smuggler. Lacking a concrete butt plug I suppose that I couldn't equal Stevie in controlling my facial expression. I am, however, pretty good. The problem is that, just after clearing the exit door I would feel an overwhelming urge to turn around and give a combined middle finger and cocked elbow salute while loudly insulting Customs for not catching me. In other words I find "gottcha-now-you-son-of-a-bitch" moments of triumph irresistible. Even if the triumph is somebody else's.


This is beyond belief. I'm listening in as a ten year old girl traps one of the most sly, slippery, conspiring, mendacious lower forms of reptilian life that has ever "graced" Canadian politics. Stevie tries one more tack saying, "I have my own lyrics for that song". Probably true, but he ain't getting Maria to sing them. This bizarre proposal freezes in midair, and Stevie resigns himself to a lot of strange looks at the soul saving gatherings for years to come. Maria sang the first verse :
"Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today."


And now it's Stevie's turn for verse # 2. His pants ripple as his anal sphincter tightens as hard as possible on that old concrete enema.
"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace."


While singing the "and no religion too" part Stevie's amygdala took over and he had to say "I'm going to get in trouble for that one". One can only speculate if this was actual worry, an attempt at damage control or perhaps a rare sighting of a bird most have thought extinct for decades...Stephen Harper's sense of humour. Who knows ?


While gathering up their shoes and leaving the Aragon household some of the reporters present decided it might be interesting to ask Maria's father if he is a Conservative supporters. This was out of the question, and Stevie's thugs (excuse me, "campaign staff") made it very plain that the media would have no chance to talk to the family.


Thus ended Sneaky's attempt to catch as much of the star dust as possible from the fame that surrounds Maria Aragon. Hardly as successful as he might have hoped. I have to say that my opinion of Maria and her family is that they are some of the smartest people in this city. One thing they may not know, however, is what to do now. My usual advise to anyone who lets such a circus through their door is simple. Phone Poulin's Exterminators, the oldest such company in Winnipeg. Don't think you are safe just because the politician and his gangsters have gone out the door. For all you know they could have laid eggs, and as anarchists through the centuries have found out to their sorrow government pests are harder to get rid of once developed than any other pest on Earth.


Now, courtesy of a secret agent the law firm of Molly, Molly, Molly and Mew has placed in the PMO are the actual words of Sneaky Stevie's own version of 'Imagine'. In full. You can see what Harper's version is just as it is sung in intimate moments in the Harper household.. An exclusive to Molly's Blog Enjoy gentle reader:
"Imagine there's no freedom
It's easy if you try.
All proles below us
We can do it on the sly
Imagine all the wages
Much lower than today

CHORUS
You may say I'm a tyrant
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
As consultant 901

Imagine there's no unions
It isn't hard to do
Nothing but planes and prisons
And no high pensions too
Imagine all lower people
Living life in debt

CHORUS

Imagine there's no welfare
I wonder if you can
No need for medicare
Woman once more under man
Imagine all the people
Working for $10 a day

CHORUS

MOLLY'S POETRY CORNER:

TULI KUPFERBERG 1923-2010:

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. All of those influences on me when I was an obnoxious young kid (instead of an obnoxious old fart) are passing away into the great beyond faster than you can say "geezer". Shortly after my brief piece on Harvey Pekar Larry Gambone of the Porkupine Blog commented that Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs died two days ago as well. Dead at the young age of 86. Just goes to show you that all the propaganda about living a long life by living cleanly is utter horseshit.

Now most younger readers of this blog would be unacquainted with 'The Fugs'. See the two references above for further info. Basically they were an "anti-band" formed in 1964 at a transition point where the 'Beats' were influencing the developing New Left and the so-called "counterculture". Unlike Pekar Kupferberg actually defined himself as an anarchist..of the pacifist variety, but unfortunately Kuperferberg also paid little (no ?) attention to ordinary people outside of his bohemian circles other than in sexual references. Still, working within this restriction, Kupferberg was an incisive artist, and he had many great insights at the personal and moral level. That was the nature of his anarchism and he paid as little attention to class based issues as to stamp collecting.

People who missed the Fugs missed one of the great moments in popular culture. To put it briefly this was punk music with all its good and bad points while the punkers were still in diapers or even yet to swim up the cervical canal. Right down to the foul language, quite often the contribution of Kupferberg. Such gems as 'Saran Wrap' and 'Slum Goddess' may not stand the test of time as masterpieces of English literature (no f'ing kidding !), but they put their profanity at a higher level than repeating "Fuck You" over and over.

People can see some of his later interests at his You Tube site. Also here is one of his more explicitly anarchist songs.

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BECAUSE THE STATE
tune: chorus of "Because the Night (Belong to Lovers)"
by Patti Smith & Bruce Springsteen


Because the state belongs to fuckers
Because the state belongs to them
Alpha primate otherfuckers
Wasps in the edenic glen

& because the state was made by fuckers
Because the state was made for them
Pleasure-hating motherfuckers
Lover-baiting sons a guns

And the state holds monopoly of force
"Cop killers" also mean "cops who kill"
& tho the idea is somewhat coarse
Wilheim Reich might hold: "That's a sexual thrill"

& because the state seducts us early
From 3 years on to postgrad docs:
Because the state educts us early
Dripdries our brains, hangs 'em out like sox

& because the state thrives with armies
Protects its properties thru blacks & blues
Soldier boys are never called "murderers"
But what the hell is what they do?

& soon no doubt when we're alone
The govt'll tape your cunt & my bone
The state is a devil disguised as God
That throws its laws like a lightening rod

& this "executive committee of the ruling class"
Shoves its media up our ass
Will the evil of two lessers set you free?
Now the question's: "To be internet or be TV?"

But because the state belongs to fuhrers
Because the state kills us for fun
Because the state belongs to furors
Because the state thinks only with the gun

& because the state belongs to fuckers
Because the state belongs to them
Gotta underthrow them motherfuckers
To return us to our edenic glen

O because the state belongs to fuckers
Because the state belongs to them
Oh we'll have to change them all to lovers
& we'll have to try & start again
Yeah we'll have to change us all to lovers
Oh we'll have to try to begin again....

OY!

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Here's the obit for Kupferburg from the New York Times. A rather incisive opinion of what the Fugs were, a mixture of high culture (such as their adaption of Mathew Arnold's poem 'On Dover Beach' )and teenage sexual angst in its lowest form. Still, the mixture produced a very tasty stew. Just as an aside I've been looking up Tuli's "name change". His birth name was 'Naftali' (mentioned as the 6th son of Jacob in Genesis) which in Hebrew means "struggling". He was probably unaware when he shortened it to 'Tuli' that this form means "at peace with God' in Irish. Seems to me he should have kept the original. Here's the obit.

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Tuli Kupferberg, Bohemian and Fug, Dies at 86
By BEN SISARIO
Tuli Kupferberg, a poet and singer who went from being a noted Beat to becoming, in his words, “the world’s oldest rock star” when he helped found the Fugs, the bawdy and politically pugnacious rock group, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 86 and lived in Manhattan.


He had been in poor health since suffering two strokes last year, said Ed Sanders, his friend and fellow Fug.

The Fugs were, in the view of the longtime Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, “the Lower East Side’s first true underground band.” They were also perhaps the most puerile and yet the most literary rock group of the 1960s, with songs suitable for the locker room as well as the graduate seminar (“Ah, Sunflower, Weary of Time,” based on a poem by William Blake); all were played with a ramshackle glee that anticipated punk rock.

With songs like “Kill for Peace,” the Fugs also established themselves as aggressively antiwar, with a touch of absurdist theater. The band became “the U.S.O. of the left,” Mr. Kupferberg once said, and it played innumerable peace rallies, including the “exorcism” of the Pentagon in 1967 that Norman Mailer chronicled in his book “The Armies of the Night.” (The band took its name from a usage in Mailer’s “Naked and the Dead.”)

The Fugs was formed in 1964 in Mr. Sanders’s Peace Eye Bookstore, a former kosher meat store on East 10th Street in Manhattan. By then Mr. Kupferberg, already in his 40s, was something of a Beatnik celebrity. He was an anthologized poet and had published underground literary magazines with titles like Birth and Yeah.

He had also found notoriety as the inspiration for a character in Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl.” As Ginsberg and Mr. Kupferberg acknowledged, he was the one who “jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten,” a reference to a 1945 suicide attempt (off the Manhattan Bridge, not Brooklyn) that had been precipitated by what he called a nervous breakdown.

The fame that episode earned him caused Mr. Kupferberg a lifetime of chagrin and embarrassment. “Throughout the years,” he later said, “I have been annoyed many times by, ‘Oh, did you really jump off the Brooklyn Bridge?,’ as if it was a great accomplishment.”

The Fugs’ first album, “The Village Fugs Sing Ballads of Contemporary Protest, Points of View and General Dissatisfaction,” was released in 1965. The band became a staple of underground galleries and theaters, as well as antiwar rallies. In concert Mr. Kupferberg was often the group’s mascot or harlequin, acting out satirical pantomimes — an American soldier who turns into a Nazi, for example — or sometimes not singing at all.

On subsequent albums the band changed its lineup many times and acquired a more professional sound, though its scatological themes got it kicked off at least one major record label.

With his bushy beard and wild hair, Mr. Kupferberg embodied the hippie aesthetic. But the term he preferred was bohemian, which to him signified a commitment to art as well as a rejection of restrictive bourgeois values, and as a scholar of the counterculture he traced the term back to an early use by students at the University of Paris. Among his books were “1,001 Ways to Live Without Working” — and for decades he was a frequent sight in Lower Manhattan, selling his cartoons on the street and serving as a grandfather figure for generations of nonconformists.

Beneath Mr. Kupferberg’s antics, however, was a keen poetic and musical intelligence that drew on his Jewish and Eastern European roots. He specialized in what he called “parasongs,” which adapted and sometimes satirized old songs with new words. And some of his Fugs songs, like the gentle “Morning, Morning,” had their origins in Jewish religious melodies.

Naphtali Kupferberg was born in New York on Sept. 28, 1923. He grew up on the Lower East Side and became a jazz fan and leftist activist while still a teenager. He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1944 and got a job as a medical librarian.

“I had intended to be a doctor at one point, like any good Jewish boy,” he recalled to Mr. Sanders in an audio interview in 2003. Instead he began to write topical poems and humor pieces, contributing to The Village Voice and other publications.

After the Fugs broke up, in 1969, Mr. Kupferberg performed with two groups, the Revolting Theater and the Fuxxons, and continued writing. The Fugs reunited periodically, first in 1984. Recently, Mr. Sanders said, Mr. Kupferberg had completed his parts for a new album, “Be Free: The Fugs Final CD (Part Two),” and had also been posting ribald “perverbs” — brief videos punning on well-known aphorisms — on YouTube.

Mr. Kupferberg is survived by his wife, Sylvia Topp; three children, Joseph Sacks, Noah Kupferberg and Samara Kupferberg; and three grandchildren.

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One can only hope that Tuli is right now getting together with Lenny Bruce in heaven to put together some comedy routine to mock the pomposity of the Almighty. As Kupferberg believed nothing but nothing should be taken too seriously. Case in point...here's one of my Fugs favourites...the 'Nothing Song'.

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Monday: Nothing,
Tuesday: Nothing,
Wednesday and Thursday: Nothing.
Friday, for a change: A little more nothing,
Saturday: Once more nothing.

Sunday: Nothing,
Monday: Nothing,
Tuesday and Wednesday: Nothing.
Thursday, for a change: A little more nothing,
Friday: Once more nothing.

Montik: Gornicht,
Dinstik: Gornicht,
Midwoch un Donnerstik: Gornicht.
Fritik, far a noveneh: Gornicht kigele,
Shabas: Nakh a mool gornicht.

Lunes: Nada,
Martes: Nada,
Miercoles y Jueves: Nada.
Viernes, por cambio: Poco mas nada,
Sabado: Otra vez nada.

January: Nothing,
February: Nothing,
March and April: Nothing.
May and June: A lot more nothing,
Ju-uly: Nothing.

'29: Nothing,
'32: Nothing,
'39-'45: Nothing.
1965: A whole lot of nothing,
1966: Nothing.

Reading: Nothing,
Writing: Nothing,
Even arithmetic: Nothing.
Geography, philosopy, history, nothing,
Social anthropology (hakalakala): Nothing.

Oh, "Village Voice": Nothing,
"New Yorker": Nothing,
"Sing Out" and "Folkways": Nothing.
Harry Smith and Allen Ginsberg:
Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Poetry: Nothing,
Music: Nothing,
Painting and Dancing: Nothing.
The world's great books: A great set of nothing,
Arty and Farty: Nothing.

F*cking: Nothing,
Sucking: Nothing,
Flesh and sex: Nothing.
Church and Times Square: A lot of nothing,
Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Stevenson: Nothing,
Humphry: Nothing,
Averell Harriman: Nothing.
John Stuart Mill: Nihil, nihil.
Franklin Delano Nothing.

Karlos Marx: Nothing,
Engels: Nothing,
Bakunin and Krapotkin: Nyothing.
Leon-a Trotsky: Lots of nothing,
Stalin: Less than nothing.

Nothing! Nothing! etc.
(Lots & lots of nothing)
Nothing! Nothing! etc.
(Lots of it)
Nothing!
(Not a God damn thing)

POPULAR CULTURE:
COMIX ARTIST HARVEY PEKAR DIES AT 70:




A blast from the past today. One of the icons of American comix, Harvey Pekar, died today. Now it's been perhaps too many years since I was a great comics fans and collector, but Pekar's work on American Splendor sticks out in my memory. Pekar had the unique talent to make the seemingly trivial events of everyday life shine with luminous meaning. His style was, of course, not for everyone, but his concerns and subject matter were universal (or at least pertinent to the 99% of us who are neither rich, famous nor members of a cult, either religious or political). He'll be sorely missed.



I sold my first comic collection almost a quarter century ago, and have been only peripherally a fan since then. Turns out I've missed a lot, at least in terms of Pekar. Here's one of the many tributes to the man, this one from the Care2 site.
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Harvey Pekar, the Mark Twain of Comics, Dies at 70
His work has been compared to Mark Twain and Anton Chekov. Harvey Pekar, the "genius of the mundane," a neurotic, obsessive, erudite comic book writer and cultural historian died early Monday morning in Cleveland. It's a great loss to American arts and letters.

A pioneer in underground comics, Pekar brought the voices and lives of everyday people to the forefront of his work. While cranky and irascible, Pekar wrote of class concerns with empathy and clarity. His work was an equalizing force kin to Studs Terkels' oral histories (which makes it unsurprising that his last full-length work was a graphic adaptation of Terkel's Working.) As Joanna Connors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote:

"Unlike the superheroes who ordinarily inhabit the pages of comic books, Pekar could neither leap tall buildings in a single bound, nor move faster than a speeding bullet. Yet his comics suggested a different sort of heroism: The working-class, everyman heroics of simply making it through another day, with soul -- if not dignity -- intact."

From off the streets of Cleveland...
Pekar is perhaps best known for his biographical comic American Splendor, which elegantly catalogued the unexpected pleasures and frustrations of life in Cleveland, Ohio. Pekar was a file clerk at a VA hospital by day, but wrote prolifically about jazz and literature in his off hours.

Pekar's work broke open comics as a medium that served a greater purpose sans the superheroics. They elevated daily life to something beyond humdrum--in Pekar's hands, finding the right pair of shoes for a song at the thrift store was a meditation on style and passing trends. He paved the way for future generations of independent comic artists dedicated to replicating the unsung morsels of daily life.

Top Ten
Pekar was politically outspoken, particularly about the undue influences of corporations. In the late 1980s, Pekar was a recurring guest on Late Night with David Letterman, until he became critical of General Electric on the air (GE owned NBC at the time).

Pekar worked with peace activist Heather Roberson on the book Macedonia, ultimately producing a case study about a country that, despite heavy political pressures, has never descended into war like its neighbor Kosovo. Other works include histories of the Beat poets and Students for a Democratic society.

Pekar's work merged the personal and the political in a highly accessible way. It embodies a core democratic sentiment: That all people should have access to art and politics--and that even the most unexpected sources have something to contribute to the conversation. To see some of his last works, visit The Pekar Project.


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I have already admitted that I missed a lot of Pekar's later work which if you were to judge from the above made was what originally the more or less implicit political content of his work into something quite explicit. I think that his early work, set as it was in the depressing city of Cleveland ( probably even worse than Winnipeg )and dealing only with the events of everyday life was a much needed corrective to the tendency of all opponents of the way things are to drift into a fantasy world of spectacle. There is a direct line between this concern for the ordinary person and his later efforts. Anyways, here's his obit as published in the British newspaper The Guardian.

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Harvey Pekar obituary

Harvey Pekar, who has died aged 70, was the writer of American Splendor, an autobiographical comic in which he wrote about the everyday, often mundane, aspects of his life. Pekar experimented with the narrative form and used a shifting roster of artists on his comics, but it was the sheer ordinariness of the stories that slowly earned him a strong following, critical acclaim and comparisons with Chekhov and Dostoevsky.

Set in the rundown neighbourhoods of Cleveland, Ohio, American Splendor's world was revealed without exaggeration or self-aggrandisement. Pekar, opinionated and curmudgeonly, was often the most frustrating and aggravating character to appear in his books. The writer became a regular guest on the talkshow Late Night With David Letterman, but his confrontational style led to him being banned from it.

In 1990, Pekar was diagnosed with lymphoma and underwent chemotherapy. Heavy medication led to hallucinations and occasional paralysis, but the cancer went into remission. His wife, Joyce Brabner, kept detailed notes during this period and collaborated with him on Our Cancer Year (1994), an unflinching account of their relationship, illustrated by Frank Stack.

Our Cancer Year was central to the 2003 movie American Splendor, directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, and starring Paul Giamatti as Pekar and Hope Davis as Brabner. Pekar and Brabner also appeared as themselves in the film, which won major prizes at the Sundance and Cannes festivals.

When asked in an interview whether he thought the film was an accurate account of his life, Pekar replied: "I don't know what's normal because I don't see too many movies ... but yeah, it felt right. It felt true." Not surprisingly, he gave his own account of the film-making process in his 2004 collection, American Splendor: Our Movie Year.

Born in Cleveland, he was the eldest son of Saul and Dora Pekar, Polish Jews who had recently moved to the US from Białystok. Pekar grew up in a working-class neighbourhood, where his father ran a grocery store. After graduating from Shaker Heights high school in 1957, he held down a series of short-lived jobs, including stints as a janitor and an elevator operator.

He attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland but dropped out after a year. He was also briefly in the navy – as he later recounted in his 2005 comic, The Quitter, drawn by Dean Haspiel. In 1965 he settled into a dull but stable job as a clerk at a Veterans Affairs medical centre in Cleveland, where he remained until his retirement in 2001.

Pekar had read comic books from the age of six but lost interest in them after a few years because he found the stories cliched and repetitive. In 1959 he began writing jazz reviews for magazines. His interest in comics was rekindled in 1962 when he met the 19-year-old artist Robert Crumb.

Crumb was already involved in the nascent "comix" scene of artists who were creating underground, counterculture strips. Pekar, although impressed by the freedom of expression offered by this new movement, felt that they concentrated on a bohemian lifestyle which he – as a wage slave – did not share.

Pekar enjoyed the directness of writers such as Henry Miller and felt that even his workaday life had its moments of humour and drama. In the early 1970s he began writing stories, using stick figures and laying out the scripts as storyboards. He showed these to Crumb, who offered to illustrate some of the stories. Their collaboration appeared in Crumb's The People's Comics in 1972 and Pekar's autobiographical tales were featured in other underground titles, including Bizarre Sex, Flaming Baloney, Snarf and Flamed-out Funnies.

In 1975 he conceived the idea of self-publishing so that he could write longer, more involved stories. Although he lost money on the first issue of American Splendor, published in 1976, later annual issues – which ran to around 60 pages – slowly found an audience. By the early 90s, American Splendor had a print run of 10,000 copies per issue.

Pekar continued to review books and records and write essays, often for the alternative press. From 1992 to 1996, he also penned a series of comic strips about jazz, drawn by Joe Sacco, for the Village Voice newspaper. Doubleday published the collection American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar in 2006. A sequel, More American Splendor, came out the following year.

American Splendor was published by Dark Horse Comics from 1994 to 2002 and Vertigo (DC Comics) from 2006 to 2008, giving Pekar the financial stability to work on other projects, including Unsung Hero (illustrated by David Collier, 2003), about the experiences in Vietnam of an African-American colleague at the VA hospital where Pekar worked.

Pekar wrote Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History (drawn by Gary Dumm, 2008) and Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation (drawn by various artists, 2009). He also contributed to The Beats: A Graphic History (various artists, 2009).

He divorced twice before marrying Joyce in 1983. The couple adopted a daughter, Danielle, in 1998. They survive him, along with his younger brother, Allen.

• Harvey Lawrence Pekar, comics writer, born 8 October 1939; died 12 July 2010
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And here is my favourite Harvey Pekar quote, taken from an interview which he gave to Walrus Comix.
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"NO… ACTUALLY, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SELL OUT!! I mean if I KNEW how to sell out... I mean I haven’t given in to commercialism because I DON’T KNOW HOW TO give in to commercialism... If I DID, I might have done it a long time ago!! "

No doubt Harvey will find lots to grumble about in heaven. RIP.

POPULAR CULTURE:
THE MICHAEL JACKSON DEATH CIRCUS:
Sigh!!!!!! I guess it's inevitable. Everyone has to have their two cents worth about the death of Michael Jackson, and Molly has joined the crowd. To be honest I never though much about Michael Jackson one way or the other before his death. He was lumped into the category of "celebrities whose names I was unfortunately unable to forget". I've spent years working towards the goal of being unable to recognize the name of any celebrity, music, sports, film, TV, etc.. I do this because I really and truly don't like having my thoughts manipulated. The thing about celebrity is that all so-called "facts" about them are absolutely unverifiable. This applies equally to "good Prole-feed" as it does "bad Prole-feed". Jackson may or may not have been a "great artist", but there are no objective criteria to judge this. He may or may not have been a child-molester. Probably, even though he has never been convicted. Not having been on a jury where all the facts were presented I, however, have no basis for a firm opinion one way or the other.




What I do have a firm opinion on is the obvious- that, like all objects of the "celebrity industry", Jackson was an occasion for making profit by an industry where the concept of "truth" is even more degraded than it is in the aphasic ramblings of post-modern "scholars". I often like to say of any celebrity that, "they don't exist", and in one way this is very true. Like the others the Michael Jackson that some (now a great number) worshipped and the Michael Jackson that some (temporarily a small number) hated never existed in the same sense as you and I and the others we meet in real life "exist". Whatever highly developed primate who was given the identity tag in the verbal system of the pair of mammals whose DNA united to form his fetus bears only a chance relationship to the 'Michael Jackson' that was produced for entertainment by the media.




I'm actually quite slack jawed in amazement about the circus that has been going on about his death, and the points of interest are many and various. The actual quantity of interest that I have, however, is quite limited. I hope to be able to forget all the hype, both good and bad. before I die. I have, however, opened up a poll over at our sister site Molly's Polls so that you can have your say about the matter. I guess that I'll have to place a post there so there is room for any ranters. A painful process actually as, comparing things, I definitely think more about the squirrels in my backyard and all their ramifications than I do about Michael Jackson. By a factor of about 100,000 to one actually. Not a day goes by that I don't think of them. They exist for sure. Whatever may be the primate designated by the term 'Michael Jackson', well, I'm not too sure.




See Molly's Polls for the question, "What Do You Think of the Michael Jackson Death Circus ?'.
WWWWWWWWWWW
By the way, for those of you with a taste for the weird, as I have, check out the "evolution of Michael jackson's face at http://www,uglychart.com/archives/2005/03/a_history_of_mi .

POPULAR CULTURE:

GROWING UP HATING ARCHIE:

Like many of my generation I was an avid comic collector when I was young, and, also like many of my generation, I have the regret of having sold my collection (three different ones actually) far too soon. Twenty five years ago I could have purchased a house with what they would have brought at that time. Today it would have been retirement city. Oh, the folly, the folly, the folly !

Like every true comic collector at that time I hated Archie Comics, not just for its inherently imbecilic "quality", but also for what we perceived as its destructive corporate role in the institution of the 'Comics Code Authority'. This Cold War example of 'American Stalinism' (1954) essentially destroyed the gradually developing trend of 'intelligent comics', and relegated the industry to almost a decade of sterility and stupidity.

The primary victim of this censorship was EC Comics. From a thriving multititle publisher they were eventually reduced to a sole magazine- Mad Magazine. They were later to get their "artistic revenge", as will be described below.

At the time we tended to "blame" Archie Comics and its publishers for the Comics Code. there was at least a small amount of truth in this as Archie Comics certainly campaigned heavily for the CCA, and there was little doubt that its actions were not without self interest as its products were, at the time, bland beyond all human imagination ie they would never be censored under pretty well any regime, while those of its more adult and intelligent competitors would bear the burden. We(comic collectors) not only despised Archie Comics for its idiocy (not juvenality as there were other titles that appealed to a younger audience that were not as idiotic- think Richie Rich, the "Duck titles', Caspar the Friendy Ghost or many others) but also for its role in suppressing what we, as a self appointed 'intelligentsia' of comics thought was worth our reading and consideration. The censorship extended not just to the writing but also to the artwork as well. The CCA had a chilling effect not just on subject matter, but via some mysterious process of osmosis on experimentation with visual technique as well. There may be reasons for this, but they are the subject of another post. For now think how similar "socialist realism" was to Norman Rockwell and other mainstream American art of the period.

Our attitude was, of course, an oversimplification. It is always tempting to personify an obnoxious social trend rather than seeing it for the social phenomenon that it is. This childishness lives on to our day in the subculture of "conspiracy theory". No doubt Archie Comics conspired with various figures to institute the Comics Code Authority because it was very much in their self interest and was a direct attack on their competition. The "Zeitgeist" of the times, however, was such that all sorts of political forces in the USA (note that by this time there was no longer a Canadian comics industry) found common cause in imposing statist control over what they conceived of as a major influence on children. The trigger for this attack on free speech came from the left via mindworm (psychologist) Frederick Wertham's 'Seduction of the Innocent'. This was hardly the first-nor the last as the alliances continue to our day- example of where the practical proposals of a so-called "left" and right wing forces have coincided in an attempt at state repression. It is merely an exemplar of the process. The so-called "caring" (I wish that there was a simple emoticon for me to express the hypocrisy of this social class) of what was then a neonatal ruling class of social controllers of a "leftist" (sic) persuasion coincided with the interests of what are today called 'the American Taliban' along with the generally repressive apparatus of the American state and its politicians.

EC publisher William Gaines later got his cold served revenge via the Archie spoof 'Starchie' published in what remained of his outfit- Mad Magazine. The graphic above is from this story where everything in the Archie series is 'detourné" in a way that shows the Situationists as amateurs. Amazingly enough Mad magazine was not sued over their parody. Perhaps this was good legal advise as Mad published parody after parody and always got away with it. Perhaps it was merely a less litigious time. Nobody knows for sure because the 'Carrot Top Conglomerate' was hardly a shrinking violet about suing others in later years. In later years Archie Comics did sue a wide variety of people including 'Help ! Magazine' (see the Wikipedia article on Archie Comics on how the company got shitty legal advise and how this series is now freely printable), a music group 'The Veronicas', a fan site called 'Fanfiction.net', a theatre company in Georgia and a punk rock group called 'Jughead's Revenge'. Archie Comics has hardly been as lawsuit prone as good old 'Adolf Mouse'(you know who I mean), but they have definitely established a "criminal pattern"of such action.

So...let's go back to one of Molly's admittedly faulty memories. I have my doubts as to the timeline of this story because 'Spire Christian Comics' didn't initiate publication until 1972 when I think 1) The "Regina Book Exchange' on South Railway Ave. had already closed, to be replaced later by the 'Purple Dragon on Dewdney Ave. and 2)I had taken a temporary hiatus from hanging around such places. It such a case the "Christian Comics" of the following likely refers to the Catholic Church's efforts in 'Treasure Chest' (admittedly several layers of civilization above the American Holy Roller productions of 'Spire Christian Comics'. The anti-evolutionist stand of the American Taliban may actually be right in this case. They obviously didn't "evolve from monkeys". They quite obviously "descended' from them in a less than flattering interpretation of the word "descend".

Anyways, here we (serious "geeks" who would hang around an used book store from morning opening to closing time waiting for people to come in to sell comics that we might be interested in) were, slouching around the 'Regina Book Exchange', situated on "beautiful" South Railway Avenue (a part of Regina's skid row since demolished and rebuilt in Regina's pathetic attempt to develop and pretend that it is something other than what it is). In walks Frau Uberkomandanta Helga Von Whippen, trailing what is either a grandson or a nephew in tow. To say the very least the poor kid is mortified. All of sleazy, ill fed degenerates lurk in the background giggling. Helga, in her best Prussian command language says to the guy at the desk..."Ve vant some 'Christian Comics'". the guy at the desk looks at her like she is insane, which she actually is outside of her concrete enema social circle. He says nothing, just tries to figure out what she wants. The kid say..."I want Superman" in a plaintiff voice. Helga ignores this, and she barks out her order again..."Ve vant Christian Comics". By this time the guy behind the desk has regained his composure, even though the giggling from the gathering of us geek degenerates is growing and growing. He says to Frau Whippendiejudden that ..."you'll have to go back there and look through the bins". The kid makes his second plea..."I want Superman", even whinier than before.

Helga glances our way and tries out her best 'Aryan Stare' on us. We respond with a Tasmanian Devil stare that says...come within 5 feet and see how many digits you can lose. Helga turns back to issue commands to the guy behind the desk, but he is gone. In what little mercy such a thug can muster Helga drives her charge out of the store, yapping at the top of her lungs because the sales clerk wouldn't go back and select her own propaganda from the 10,000 comics randomly shoved into bins (That was the way it was then). No doubt she is both 1)dead by now-I personally hope via the cause of death formerly registered as 'apoplexy" 2)A life long believer in both her own personal holiness and her right to make anybody else's life unpleasant by demanding that they serve her.

For some reason I connect this with "Spire Christian Comics' where the Archie characters were used to make crude propaganda for the cause of American fundamentalism. Maybe I was still hanging around the Regina Book Exchange in the early 70s, though, by that time I was also hanging around sleazy bars where people were occasionally killed. Us geeks continued our interests well into our 20s. It would have been a short walk anyways. Maybe Helga Von Fascistgruppen was Austrian or south German, and the Catholic 'Treasure Chest' was the poison more appropriate to her taste.What I remember was the utter torture the kid was going through. As a kid who, at the age of 15, put his foot down to his parents and said, "I don't care if you kill me, I will never go to Mass Again" I wish him well. This went over not too badly with my parents who, as socialists, were only vaguely loyal to the Church of Rome at best. In later years I had to be the "the voice of reasons" when one Jesuit priest beat the living shit out of me and my old man wanted to go and deal with him in a greater way. My old man, by the way, was boxing champion of Quebec in his weight class. The sucker who landed so many punches on me was a young boy ass grabbing thug priest (never my ass to be sure) who was only a provincial boxer. To the credit of my old man I remembered what he had taught me and after the first (probably 10) punches fell I got up my guard so he couldn't get through with a single one.

My face was a mess. On the other hand when fuckface John Toth- who is probably dead by now and beyond prosecution for when he "scored" with the young boys" (sue me fuckers of the Jesuit Order and see what happens)- saw that I was a far better boxer than he was even if I was too stunned to fight back he drew back. Later the local intelligent fascist principal of the school, Father Boyle, got wind of what had happened. The guy was an "intelligent fascist" without any of the quirks that defined so many of his underlings. As the old man and the old lady are "discussing" the retaliation for my busted up face (an Irishman versus a Russian woman) the phone rings. I answer it because they are too busy yelling. It is Toth "apologizing" for what he did. After I hear his bullshit I turn the phone over to them. One by one they heard his bullshit, obviously coerced by Boyle and said yeah, yeah, yeah. When the phone was finally returned to its cradle we broke out in the sort of "family moment" that Christian fascists dream of. All three of us could barely stand for laughing.

I've obviously strayed far beyond the subject at hand- Archie's marriage. My own excuse...Archie Comics always was and is today an organ of propaganda. Their sick idea of "family values" were and are totally different from the very much closer families such as I grew up in. It is a culturally specific set of "values" that has little to do with me, nor with the vast majority of the world's population. To us it is anathema.

But much more on this later. This is KP to King 3 in this game.

POPULAR CULTURE:

WHO SHOULD ARCHIE MARRY ?:

The following is gambit # 1 in an experiment in "meme manipulation". The publishers of Archie Comics have hit a goldmine in their own latest gambit of Archie finally proposing to one of his perpetual girlfriends- Veronica. It has gathered them publicity across the world, publicity to die for. Even if you have a sneaking suspicion that issue # 600 will carry a 'jack in the box' that goes against the carefully constructed leaks that AC has devised you have to admire the intelligence behind this campaign. To say the least this has revitalized their brand. Maybe they will pull a total surprise later this summer. Maybe it will be nothing more than the usual comic book tactic of a "what-if" story. Still...look for sales of issue # 600 to go through the roof.

Molly is beginning her own little experiment in "meme manipulation" here. Is it possible for a single individual to turn such a mass marketing initiative on its head ? Please go to our sister site Molly's Polls to register your vote as to "Who Should Archie Marry ?' More on this game as it develops. Pawn to Q 4.

URBAN LEGENDS:

URBAN LEGENDS TAKE TWO:

As Molly said earlier in this blog she was looking up one matter (still to come, honest!) and stumbled on the fascinating internet world of urban legends. Now, one of Molly's personal failings is that she is easily distracted, and the subject of "urban legends" is some sort of ultimate quicksand for such a person. Almost all of us have been the recipient of an "urban legend". This sort of thing could be defined as folklore on steroids. In the age of the internet and ,even better, digital photography we all receive endless stories of the amazing, amusing and atrocious. We are acephalus if we believe even a small portion of them. Some of these are obvious fakes using the technology available nowadays to the ordinary owner of a digital camera. The graphic to the left is one of many circulating about the internet purporting to show the face of the Devil in the smoke rising from the Twin Towers. It's an obvious fake, and shouldn't be taken seriously. Such things should come with a package warning-"for amusement purposes only"-, and often this is solely what their originators intend. Unfortunately there is now a mass market for nonsense of all sorts. Each piece of bullshit has its own niche market that will take it seriously.

Not that this is totally new. Previous altered photographs of Bolshevik leaders with the figure of Trotsky removed were, of course, believed by communists worldwide, as were much grosser lies. Not that this mindset is dead today, but it is certainly less common. Their are very few Catholics alive today who can make the "efforts of belief" required of the diminishing population of leftist sympathizers of say Cuba or Venezuela's Chavez who will deny,deny,deny,deny all bad news about their substitute Vatican. Most Catholics today have much more sense than that, assuming they pay more than minimal attention to what the Curia says at all. In the days when there were large and functioning communist dictatorships with pretensions to international socialist leadership the sheep of the international communist movements, whether Soviet or China aligned, were required to make much more heroic gestures of stupidity than any Catholic was ever required to make. At least the Catholic Church doesn't "change its line" from year to year. What is different today is that the best of photographic fakery that was only available to giant and brutal dictatorships or large corporations (are they the same thing ?) in the 1930s is now available to millions of people who only need to put minimal effort into learned the techniques.

The whole idea of great conspiratorial theories is, of course, not very new either. The Russian government, after all, forged 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' in the 19th century. They did this in an atmosphere where such fantasies had wide play amongst the less intelligent members of the dominant class. Conspiracies certainly existed then as now, but, like now, their reality was at least 3 orders of magnitude smaller than the "exposers" would claim- assuming they existed at all. What is new today is the power of the internet and its situation in societies where most people have at least a slight apprehension of their own powerlessness in the face of organizations that are far bigger and more powerful than any time in human history. It is the way of the "sluggard" and the "dullard" to attribute the effects of such organizations to personal malevolence rather than larger and more impersonal social dynamics. This sort of response is, of course, childish and primitive. It draws on some rather basic human sociobiology, responses that we have always had to leaders who abuse their position to the detriment of the community. But in the modern world it is as out of place as trying to settle a dispute with a war club would be. Bopping one evil son-of-a-bitch on the head does little good in a complex society where evil is institutionalized and a matter of routine. The whole matter of "conspiratorial theory" has actually taken on a life of its own today, even claiming the status of an independent ideology, whether it be right wing or left wing. As for right wingers I will leave them the distress of dealing with their own nuts, with little sympathy from my part. As for the left wing, to which I belong, all that I will say is to reiterate the resemblance of such nonsense to classical fascism (something most leftists today have little knowledge about) with its own leftist allusions connected to such fantasies of conspiracy. The difference today is that the internet provides a greater marketing opportunity than radio did for the Nazis.

But to travel away from the distasteful there are much more benign forms of legends. In previous days these were very much local or national at best. The local haunted house was the local haunted house. In an age of mass communication such things travel across the world at the speed of typing on a keyboard- or faster by simply forwarding. Perhaps the age of the internet should be renamed as "The Age of Global Fantasy". This isn't always bad. Fantasy is a great thing providing its doesn't behave like a malignant tumour and spread and contaminate our more rational ways of dealing with the world. The medical term "malignant" (sort of "evil" in its etymology) is very apt here. The mole on the left side of my nose, which I inherited from my mother and which one of my sisters shares, is "benign". It will sit there in its proper place and do nothing until I finally die of dissipated living. "Malignant" means that it spreads and takes up residence in places that it does not belong, disrupting healthy function in another organ. Some of us have better tumour surveillance than others. Metastatic spread or "carcinoma in situ" is attacked vigorously. Others have fewer defences, either physical or mental. Almost all urban legends spread by the internet are quite benign. They come to rest in an isolated area of a neural net. There they are either walled off or simply sit in glorious isolation without spreading further. Sometimes they are attacked by the neural equivalent of a natural killer cell.

But that is not always the case. Sometimes the neural net can be invaded by the equivalent of a "promoter gene". Here I ask the reader to take a leap of imagination and imagine that neural nets are similar to genomes, and that the spread of a "meme" is equivalent to the spread of a tumour, not just the "virus" that it is usually equated to- though the process is the same. Such "promoter genes" today could be such things as a belief in "post-modernism", a general feeling of disempowerment without the intellectual resources to see where it comes from, a semi-religious belief in some sort of "primitive utopia" or many other promoters of both the left or right (sometimes shared by both) that allow unverified factoids to spread and influence/disrupt other intellectual/neural functions. These promoters make the organism/neural net susceptible to invasion that distorts the actual import of the anomalous factoid so that it lodges in other more important centres and becomes a greater matter than its actually should be if it was properly walled off.

The great historical example of this is the career of Charles Fort and the cult that he has inspired. Not that this guy is very well known today, but his career is extremely instructive. What Fort did was to make a life's business, and a fairly good living it was, by collecting and publishing examples of the "inexplicable". Some of his favourite themes such as "ball lightning" have actually entered normal science today even though they were rejected in his time. Most of his collection remains the purvey of cultism over 100 years later. Given his wide span of "interests" it is no wonder that some of the fish that he dragged up proved to be real. If you go for thousands of things it's not unexpected that 2 0r 3 may prove to be right. The other 99,997 mistakes are forgotten. Today the work of Charles Fort is carried on by the International Fortean Organization, without his humour or his sense of showmanship.

All this leads into a very big question. When you meet a con-man you should be able to recognize him or her and avoid them. But when your wallet or your genitals are safe at home you may be puzzled by an intellectual question. How much of his own bullshit did that bastard believe ? It is actually a very interesting question. Few con-men can carry out their schemes without being fooled by their own nonsense at least in a limited sense. About the only situation in which this can happen is where the con-man is a)totally psychopathic ie shows few or no emotional signs that would allow others to detect their deception and/or b) has no conception that the "truth value" of a statement is important at all as compared to the other values associated with making a statement. Charles Fort very much believed in "b". He set about to make his collections consistent with "entertainment value" which was very much in accordance with his financial interest. Was he a psychopath ? No !!! He was simply selfish and deceived himself at the same time that he deceived others. He promoted an ideology of "radical scepticism"(ignoring scepticism to the anomalies) which predated post-modernism, but he lacked the political will to promote an "alternative reading" that lies behind modern post-modernism. As such he was far cleaner than present day liars are. His purposes were fairly obvious and clean. Financial benefit is actually a very clean motive as compared to others that humans are capable of.

There are cases in point here. As an anarchist I have been privy to over 30 years of the published diarrhea and evil acts of a so-called anarchist (even if he denies the label when it is convenient for his purposes) by the initials of BB. This brain damaged petty thug has set his life's goal as solely causing distress to other people, and he has picked a good set of victims. Many modern anarchists seem intent on proving how anarchism could not work by tolerating an obvious psychopath and even promoting him. Their anarchism is, of course, not my anarchism. What is sad is that a movement that presumes to offer a better way to govern an entire society can only deal with evil psychopaths (who actually BRAG about their diagnosis in print) when such nuts violate the rule of not squealing to the cops. Fuck me sideways with a stick. This fucker should have been expelled and sent to the Nazis where he belongs long before he lost a little fight and tried to rectify it by calling in the cops. Calling the cops is a tiny ,tiny,tiny,tiny itsy-bitsy offense compared to everything this guy has done over the years. This is a person who takes a malignant joy in causing distress in other people. Unlike Fort his main purpose is not to be amusing. His main purpose is to cause pain. Unfortunately the "neurological pluralism" of human psycho-biology means that such people will occasionally be born.

There are, however, others in the political space that I inhabit that are not so obvious. To a large degree they can be viewed with the same lens that one views a television preacher. How much of their own bullshit do they believe ? In the case of BB the answer is none because the whole idea of "truth" is irrelevant to the purpose of causing pain. Most situations in the real world are not so clear. When a "post-leftist" or a "primitivist" ideologue with a few years on them, a modicum of common sense as seen by other pronouncements, and a financial interest in promoting some obvious nonsense promotes bullshit one can adopt the obvious response that they merely wish to sell more copies of a magazine or get more donations to same or to a website before the cash cow runs dry. But that would be incorrect. These people actually do believe at least a portion of their own bullshit, just as the average tele-evangelist does. The comparison is very apt. They are the American expression of how any idea, no matter how noble and beautiful, can be corrupted.

But all this is not just sectarian but also very sad. The whole subject of urban legends is actually quite amusing and fun to play with- as long as you don't get sucked in. Here are a few of the sites that Molly has gathered for your amusement, all of them collections. Enjoy and don't believe.

*Snopes.Com

*Calypso' Urban Legends

*The AFU Urban Legends Archive

*Radek's Urban Legend Central

*Society and Cultural Mythology

*The Cat in Urban Mythology

*Hoax Photo Test (Can you detect the fake ?)

*Museum of Hoaxes

*Urban Legends and Superstition

Now Charles Fort would probably be amazed to see how his efforts have resulted in a cult. Perhaps if he was resurrected he could play again today. Molly would suggest a collection of "odd beliefs" rather than "odd facts". So to close here is one of Molly's favourite "cat legends", at least as big as the faked photograph to the left.

VEGGIE CAT STRIKES BACK:

"Some people at the other end of the village are well into an organic, vegetarian lifestyle. Even their pets are vegetarian- a black Labrador who farts constantly and a grey tabby cat. It was really funny the other day when some friends of ours went to buy some eggs from those people. "Doesn't your cay miss meat", they asked the veggie family. "Oh no, she' perfectly adapted to a vegetarian diet now and doesn't miss meat at all", the people replied. Just then the cat came dashing into the kitchen carrying a half eaten rabbit, and the embarrassed owners went totally pale and silent. Last thing I heard was that they were buying Whiskas in the village shop and holding it at arm's length like it was radioactive or something !".

The above is followed by a rather boring explanation at http://www.messybeast.com/urbancat2.htm . Why not let the legends stand as amusement without either believing them- or worse making them into cult objects- or trying to debunk or explain away what is really a joke. Molly has actually met such people and their stupid ideas, and when she is asked about the "best" way to do something really foolish all that she can reply is "don't try".

The Cheshire Molly

9/11 CONSPIRACY NUTS:

POPULAR MECHANICS STRIKES BACK:

In her ceaseless prowling of the internet, looking for mice to pounce upon, Molly came on a real gem recently. In March 2005 the venerable magazine 'Popular Mechanics' published an article on the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon explaining the rather simple physics and engineering behind how the attacks were so destructive. To that point the editors of that magazine, fascinated as they were with wiring and widgets, were rather naive children is the forest of fringe politics. The naivety didn't last. Their article was greeted with a massive internet flurry of abuse, none of it answering their article of course.

On October 13th, 2006 they published a rejoiner which can be found at http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4199607.html . The flavour of the attacks on them can be gauged with the sentence that the author uses to introduce this article. It says,

"On February 7, 2005, I became a member of the Bush/Haliburton/Zionist/CIA/New World Order/Illuminati conspiracy for global domination."

Yup, Popular Mechanics actually took a look at the conspiracy nuts who generated much of the hate mail, and I guess they were actually surprised to turn over this rock and find the maggots of nostalgic admirers of Hitler crawling beneath. It hardly surprises Molly. Bizarre conspiracy theories were a staple of ultra reactionaries long before old Adolph's great, great, great grandfather was a wiggling little sperm. They bequeathed this inheritance to their fascist descendants, and they, in turn, bequeathed it to their admirers today. No real surprise there, and the editors of Popular Mechanics should count themselves lucky that they had no previous contact with this underworld. Wiring and widgets may be sterile, but sterile beats putrid any day of the week. Molly has had her own little encounters with another "underworld" in her decades as an anarchist. Sympathy for acts of mindless violence amongst a few anarchists in modern decades, a small minority I assure you, has usually gone hand in glove with an absolutely uncritical admiration for other terrorists who wear an ill-fitting leftist disguise. The whole idea that anarchism should be utterly and completely opposed to Leninist tyranny and those who seek to impose it by acts of mindless violence seems a non-starter to those people. The last century and a half of anarchist history is actually a non-starter. Their world view is fueled by rather childish emotions, and the obvious futility of such tactics penetrates as deeply as the facts do for their right wing brothers. At its worst such people make common cause not just with the pathetic remains of Maoism but with neo-nazis. The attraction of using brutality is far greater than any political ideology in these cases.

But anyways have a look at the above essay for an amusing and interesting tour through the logical fallacies of "conspiratorism". The tour is instructive because the errors in thought pop up over and over in much other political discourse- just not in such concentrated and massive form.

If you are interested here are a couple of other references from critics of the 9/11 conspiracy nuts:

The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060925/cockburn

and a longer version at Counterpunch: http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09092006.html

Of course you shouldn't miss George Monbiot's piece in The Guardian entitled '9/11 Fantasists pose a mortal danger to popular oppositional campaigns' . Molly love the way he describes the 9/11 conspiracy nuts as engaging in "displacement behavior" similar to that of a squirrel that sees a larger squirrel taking a nut and rather than attack it opponent turns on the tree and gnaws it to shreds. Hence the graphic above, and also Molly's recommendation to visit Scary Squirrel World, a subject too long neglected on this blog. Go over to SSW for the only conspiracy theory worth taking seriously (and funny too).