An e-journal documenting
modern culture as it manifestson or near
that hotspot on the surrealistic powergrid known
as Spokane, WA and/or the known or
unknown universe _
__
Putting girl-watching in perspective. Pastor John Rydgren;s radio spot from
1966. Very hip. Download
MP3 ___
Now you're ready for the big time. Listen to Eric Weber's How To
Pick Up Girls at The Museum from the LP of the book based on the movie
based on the magazine ads Download
MP3. ___
Check out the Freedom
Ship, a concept for a floating city.
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George Orwell - 1984: "War is Peace."
George W. Bush - 2002: "I just want you to
know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."
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Clear Skies Initiative: More Air Pollution
Healthy Forest Initiative: More Clear Cutting
No Child Left Behind: Children Left Behind
Operation Iraqi Freedom: Iraqi Subjugation
Patriot Act: Big Brother Domestic Surveillance
May 27, 2006
Bush just named Karl Zinsmeister as his chief domestic policy advisor. In
2003, he was embedded as a military reporter with the 82nd Airborne in Iraq. His
Iraq experience is chronicled in Combat Zone: True Tales of GI's in Iraq, which
Zinsmeister wrote for Marvel Comics - a perfect background for the Bush White
House.
___
Alternet has a list of the top
ten signs of an impending U.S. police state.
May 26, 2006
General Hayden was confirmed yesterday to be the CIA Grand Poobah with
strong bipartisan support. Did any of the congressmen watch this video clip?
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Think Spokane has too many restaurants? Think
again.
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Enron's top scumbags were found guilty yesterday. Once
again, Jack Cafferty of CNN cuts through the crap.
Bringing the American-style justice system to Iraq is finally paying off. On
Wednesday, Iraq’s former Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, testified at the Saddam
trial
in his P.J.’s:
___
On May 15th, Bush and top Congressional Republicans are preparing to hit as
many as 14 million seniors with steep lifetime penalties for
not yet joining the costly, controlling, and confusing Medicare drug
program. MoveOn.org is launching an petition calling on Congress to fix
the drug program and cancel the deadline—before it's too late. Sign
the petition here. ___
Being a long time restaurant grunt worker, I took particular interest in
Bush's speech
to the National Restaurant Association yesterday. Nothing new about raw chicken
handling procedures, but he did say that we should not "demean somebody
because you don't agree with them," and that we should "be considerate
of the other person's point of view."
It is one of America's most treasured ideals. How well do you really
understand it? Take the First
Amendment quiz and find out.
___
Big Energy shill Sterling Burnett went on Fox News last night and compared Al
Gore to the late Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels: "That's
the problem. If I thought Al Gore's movie was as you like to say, fair and
balanced, I'd say, everyone should go see it, but why go see propaganda? You
don't go see Joseph Goebbels'' films to see the truth about Nazi Germany. You
don't go see Al Gore'' films to see the truth about global warming..."
H. Sterling Burnett , Ph.D. is a Senior Fellow for the National Center for
Policy Analysis (NCPA). NCPA has received $390,900 from ExxonMobil since
1998.
Some of Burnett's fellow "experts" include Marlo Lewis and
jChristopher Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The CEI is
the group which made the ridiculous
disinfomercials explaining that greenhouses gases cannot be bad since we
expel them from our own bodies.
I just had my forth cup of coffee this morning and am about to expel
something I think I'll FedEx them. Look for the package marked special delivery,
kids.
___
Randi Rhodes of Air America recently made some interesting
points on the recently-released Pentagon Film of Flight 77 smashing
into the Pentagon.
___
Yesterday
Amnesty International charged that the U.S. government’s use of
private military contractors to conduct interrogations in Iraq and to transport
suspected terrorists creates “rule-free zones” and allows abuses to go
unpunished.
___
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius just
wrote a column about how we need to start getting the intelligence right on
Iran. But he neglected to mention the fact that the intelligence on Iraq
wasn’t wrong - it was simply ignored because it didn’t fit the ideological
requirements of this administration.
You probably missed this one: Frank Zappa on CNN's Crossfire in 1986
discussing rock lyrics and censorship. It's Frank at his finest (and looking
very suave in a tie). A YouTube
thing.
___
How do we plan to warn future civilizations not to go digging around in our
nuclear waste dumps for the next 10,000 years? Here's
how. ___
Here's an anti-drug site that actually dispenses useful, somewhat
accurate information. From the BBC, Excess
All Areas says: "If you're partying hard, make sure you party smart.
Our virtual clubber takes the drugs so you don't have to."
May 22, 2006
Sleep
paralysis is what UFO “abductees” need
to have explained to them. Instead, they find gurus and join abductee
support groups.
___
Check out these drawings
by an artist under the influence of LSD -- an experiment conducted by the US
government in the late 1950's.
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One of the good things about growing civil unrest is that the rebel artists
really kick it into overdrive. I've been collecting examples of dissident art.
Will post soon.
May 21, 2006
From the Jim West section of the website Republican Sinners, describing
Spokane:
Now I know what you're thinking: "Washington? Why, that place if full of
nothing but dope-smokin' hippies, heroin junkies and wacko-jacko
environmentalists that make Greenpeace look like Ranger Rick!"
But follow me, my misguided friends, outside of your
view of Washington. Yes, Seattle had Nirvana and people do heroin in Washington,
but once you get out into the sticks, it's Republican country.
___
And now for something completely
different, from the Russian 8-Way Team (not porno).
___
Once in a while is okay, but don't make a habit of it. Click
here to play with the Pleasure Organ at the Trojan condom website.
___
I'm sorry, but I think I'll pass on tonight's Armed
Forces/Torchlight Parade. The thought of masses of people glorifying militarism
has more than just a bit of a Nuremberg Rally-like odor about it, especially
with the torches and all. Anyway, they say it's going to rain.
May 19, 2006
NBC news says it has independently verified statements
from former Marine and Congressman John Murtha confirming the execution-style
murder of 15 civilians by US Marines in the town of Haditha last November.
___
Yesterday Bush toured the Yuma sector near the U.S. Mexico
border near Yuma, Arizona, just a Molotov cocktail throw from where I
occasionally hide out. I have only two more words about this photo: Mission
Accomplished.
___
C'mon, how can you not trust this guy? General Hayden testifying before the
Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday looked as harmless as a teddy bear. He
should be tying flies or building model trains in his basement. I expected
someone to press his belly just to hear him giggle. I'm sure I saw him in Aisle
7 of Albertson's telling people no to squeeze the Charmin. And then...
"Had this been in place [the unwarranted spying on Americans] prior to
the attacks, the two hijackers who were in San Diego, Khalid Almihdhar and
Nawaf Alhazmi, almost certainly would have been identified as who they were,
what they were and, most importantly, where they were," Hayden told the
Senate Intelligence Committee.
Look, I'm risking arrest by doing this, and
don't ask me how I got it, but I obtained a recording of the testimony Gen.
Hayden gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee during their closed session. Click
here to listen.
___
The
Government
Printing Office sells a set of flash cards that are
designed to help soon-to-be citizens learn about our government. Question
80 asks, “Name one right or freedom guaranteed
by the First Amendment.” The answer lists freedom of speech,
religion, assembly and the right to petition the government — but omits
freedom of the press (screen shot provided just in case the Web page
mysteriously disappears).
___
You’d never be stupid enough to fall for the Nigerian email scam,
would you? Are
you sure?
___
The FBI acknowledges that they've been snooping in journalists' phone
records. See
here. Be sure to read the readers' comments at the end of the article.
___
It's good to know that the legacy of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld will at
least be recorded accurately in a scientific sense.
See how here.
___
Read this
before you denounce all 911 conspiracy theorists as nut cases.
___
Did you catch new White House Press Secretary Tony Snow's first televised
news briefing yesterday? Did he really use the term "tar baby"?
Video - Windows Video- Quicktime
___
You know, I try to be sympathetic to the democrats, despite their wimpiness,
but then I come across something like this: Why
Mommy is a Democrat And I'm forced to make fun of them. You can
see that, right?
___
Giuseppe Tartini’s Devil’s Trill was dictated by Satan
in a dream.
Today, Tartini would likely be in a heavy
metal band.
May 16, 2006
"Is
life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains
and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may
take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
-- Patrick
Henry, 1775
Americans must now tap into their inner Patrick Henry.
A radical among revolutionaries who opposed the U.S. Constitution for
giving government too much power, the fiery Virginian would probably set
himself on fire today. The government
spies on people, lies
about it, and, when caught in the act, refuses
to give security clearances to the investigators.
If we believe the dubious claim that terrorist threats justify sweeping
surveillance without any checks
and balances then, in a different context, we have truly come to the
ultimate choice that Henry posed: Are we prepared to die for liberty? Not in
battle against foreign occupiers, but as a possible consequence of
preventing our own government from spying on us? My answer is Yes: If
losing freedom be the price of safety, then safety be damned.
CNN's Jack Cafferty: "We all hope nothing happens to
Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, cause he might be all that stands between us and a full blown
dictatorship in this country."
While not freaking about the current Nazi-like takeover of our country, friends
and I are still making artful endeavors. Below, your humble e-editor with
the OtherSpokane production crew, attempts to answer
the eternal question: "What happens when you combine six artists, a bucket of
makeup, a video
camera, and a gallon of Carlo Rossi Burgundy?"
Answer: CORK
Mr. Needles and Professor Terrington instruct an inept waiter on proper wine
service. (6:33 - Rated C for Creepy)
CAST
James as Mr. Needles
Jesse as Professor Terrington
Aleks as Gay Waiter
Karen as Bored Girl #1
Shemaleiah as Bored Girl #2
Steve as Replacement Waiter
Shot and stitched together by yours truly...
___
The other day, the House passed a $513B defense authorization bill. The bill
included language allowing military chaplains to pray "according to the
dictates of the chaplain's own conscience." Current rules call for
nonsectarian prayers, or a moment of silence, at mandatory public gatherings.
Focus on the Family, The Christian Coalition, and other evangelical Christian
groups had urged the President to issue an executive order guaranteeing the
right of chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus. When Bush failed to act,
Republicans on Armed Services added the provision to the defense authorization
bill. An amendment offered in committee by Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), calling on
chaplains to show "sensitivity, respect and tolerance for all faiths,"
was defeated on a party-line vote. Rules did not allow floor debate.
The most severe security flaw ever found in a voting system has been discovered
by a Finnish expert working for a non-profit group. A professor of computer
science at Johns Hopkins told the NY Times that he, "almost had a heart
attack," when he learned of the problem. This was not some innocent design
error that wasn't caught. Diebold, the company that makes the machines, built in
a secret "back door" to "update the software." It could be
opened in minutes if someone knows the code. Don't worry, the code is a
proprietary secret of Diebold. Of course, there was that 2003 fund-raising
letter to Ohio Republicans from the Diebold CEO that said, "I am committed
to helping Ohio deliver its votes to the President"
___
What kind of idiot would use the Nazi example to show how easy it would be to
deport 12 million Mexicans? "If it took the Germans less than four
years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were
fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight
years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and
are not integrated into American society" Click
here to reveal the idiot.
Click above to watch the
OtherSpokane
Video Introduction
or watch a larger
version
_
Write to me at
editor@otherspokane.com
OtherSpokane.com
is protected speech
pursuant to the "inalienable rights" of all men, and the
First
(and possibly the
Second)Amendment to the Constitutionof the
United States of America.
Don't tread on
me,
pretty-please.
_
Distributed by
The Industrial Worker
Spokane, Seattle - 1909-1930 Click image for larger view. more
_
The
right
of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated...
_
Support my effort to change
the Spokane slogan!
Is
life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains
and slavery? Patrick Henry
"If freedom of speech
is taken away,
then
dumb and silent
we may be led,
like sheep
to the slaughter." George Washington
When fascism comes to America,
it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross. Sinclair Lewis
You
don't need to defend a Lion. You just need to let him out of his cage. C. S. Lewis
When
the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears
the people, there is liberty. Thomas Jefferson
To
announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to
stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but
is morally treasonable to the American public. Teddy Roosevelt
When
a nation's young men are conservative, its funeral bell is already rung.
Henry Ward Beecher
This
and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he
is a protector. Plato
Sleep
paralysis is what UFO “abductees” 
It's good to know that the legacy of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld will at
least be recorded accurately in a scientific sense. 
"Is
life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains
and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may
take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
