"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

Hey Folks -

My friend James in the UK alerted me to the BBC story below about "Free Tibet" flags being manufactured in and shipped from China.

I wrote bacl:

Lenin said: "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

China is now capitalist, and while Tibet is neither communist nor likely to "hang" China, I think something like this is what Lenin had in mind.

- Uke Man

'Free Tibet' flags made in China - BBC

Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.

The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.

But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper.

Tibet independence


The factory owner reportedly told police the emblems had been ordered from outside China, and he did not know that they stood for an independent Tibet.

Workers who had grown suspicious checked the meaning of the flag by going online.
Thousands of flags had already been packed for shipping.

Police believe that some may already have been sent overseas, and could appear in Hong Kong during the Olympic torch relay there this week.

The authorities have now stepped up the inspection of cars heading to the Shenzen Special Economic Zone and onwards to Hong Kong.


The Olympic torch is due to tour Hong Kong on Friday. It will then travel to a series of cities in mainland China before reaching Beijing for the start of the Olympic Games in August.
Its progress around the world has been marked by pro-Tibet demonstrations in several cities - including Paris, London and San Francisco.

Rallies began in the main Tibetan city of Lhasa on 10 March, led by Buddhist monks.
Over the following week protests spread and became violent - particularly in Lhasa, where ethnic Chinese were targeted and shops were burnt down.

Beijing cracked down on the protesters with force, sending in hundreds of troops to regain control of the restive areas.

But it has since agreed to resume talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama.

Red States, REPENT!!!!

God hates Republicans !!!

Hey Folks –

You know!! with all the tornadoes we’ve been having lately, I've started giving more thought to the weather.

Rev. Pat Robertson demonstrated years ago the connection between hurricanes and God. In 1989 when a hurricane threatened his headquarters, Robertson prayed to God to steer Gloria away from his companies' Virginia Beach, Virginia, headquarters. His prayers steered the storm past his area, which escaped the billions of dollars of destruction God visited on many other areas along the U.S. east coast. He made a similar successful intercession during Hurricane Felix, in 1995. But pay no attention to Hurricane Isabel; musta been some queers sneaked into the Virginia Beach compound in 2003 - or it woulda worked again !

We know too – Thanks to Rev. Robertson and Rev. Jerry Falwell - that terrorist attacks are connected to God’s anger with gays, feminists, Liberals, the ACLU, et al.

Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-CAcdta_8I

More recently, John McCain endorser, Rev. John Hagee, has added his voice to the argument that sinful gays have caused terrible hurricane retribution. See the first part of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDI7pt9KGs4

Now with all that in mind, it didn’t take much for me to notice something profound:

All the tornados are attacking RED States!!!!!

Isn’t it obvious???

God hates Republicans!!!!

I know!! It’s hard to believe, but it’s TRUE!!! Think about it!!

The increase in terribly deadly and destructive weather is caused by global warming, and WHO doesn’t believe in global warming????

REPUBLICANS !!!

Think about it !!!

How many times have Rush, Sean, Jonah, Bill, and all their Republican pals stomped, smashed, vilified, and generally denigrated the whole notion of climate change?

God is pissed off!!! He made this planet and he doesn’t want it sodomized by ignorant media whores. These damned tornadoes are just going to get worse and worse until we get rid of Republicans.

Say, “Amen!!!”


- Uke Man

Alan Drogin - Erik Satie's "Dessicated Embryos"

Hey Folks -

Here's the work of my friend Alan Drogin doing Erik Satie's "Dessicated Embryos," an impressionist composition. Accompanying text read by Jason Maniscalco.

Performed April 4, 2008, second night of the Ukulele Caravan, at the Bowery Poetry Club.

- Uke Man

"One Can Never Be Too Thin Or Shallow"

The French take up the fight against Adipophobia

Hey Folks,

Far below is a recent news item reporting on France's is attempt to slow down the notion of "Emaciated Is Beautiful." Good luck.

The item reminded me of a 2006 Uke Man posting (directly below). I think it gives a little idea of what the French are up against. Perhaps they should team up with “Fatties United Conscientiously at Kentucky University.”

- Uke Man

In the May 18, 2006 Columbus Dispatch was an article, based on a Yale survey, titled “What would you give up to be thin?”

It seems that people would do almost ANYTHING to be thin, at least the ones surveyed by Yale (home of “Skull & Bones” [what could be thinner?].

Besides the severe and lengthy suffering integral to a myriad of fad and “serious” diets, the survey-ees reportedly were willing to trade decades of their lives for skinniness. They would trade an arm or a leg to avoid poundage. Some would rather be blind.

The article goes on: “Thirty per cent of respondents said they would rather be divorced than obese; 25 per cent said they would prefer not being able to have children; 15 per cent said they would rather be severely depressed. Slightly fewer said they would rather be an alcoholic (14 per cent).

But it wasn't simply personal sacrifices that people said they would be willing to make; 10 per cent said they would rather have an anorexic child than an obese one. Eight per cent said they would prefer their child to have learning disability.”

I was amazed !! It was hard to believe; so, I surfed the net for possible illumination. By chance, I came across (and have included below) an article from “The Adipose Quarterly,” the collegiate periodical of “Fatties United Conscientiously at Kentucky University” (FUC-KU), which I hope sheds some light on the matter.

- Uke Man


. . . The Follow-Up Survey

Fellow Phatties,

I’m sure you have been made aware of the recent Yale survey : “What would you give up to be thin?”

Well, the leadership here at FUC-KU have not been idle !! In fact, we have completed a follow-up survey of the same skinny people polled by Yale, using questions left off the original inquiry. The results are below.

The Majority of respondents claimed:

1. They would consider Zen gardening only if Buddha slimmed down.

2. Peter Paul Rubens is either a candy bar or Pee Wee Herman.

3. Tooth-whitening does NOT ameliorate obesity.

4. The new Pope should consider selective liposuction.

5. Money DOES ameliorate obesity.

6. John Belushi and Chris Farley weren't fat.

7. Renoir and R. Crumb don’t know “sexy.”

8. They would rather be uglier than fat.

9. Karen Carpenter was a Goddess.

10. They don't think the joke: “Want t’lose 10 lbs. of ugly fat? Cut off your head!!" is a funny rejoinder.

11. They loved Britney before she got fat.

12 Tom Cruise and Scientology rule !!

As you can see, the majority of respondents were extremely faithful to their mantra: “One can never be too thin or shallow.”

There were only a few departures from their solid front:

Seven out of ten would NOT give up their cell phones to avoid poundage. Nine out of ten would rather be fat than have Jay Leno’s chin!

Finally, in the “Comments” section, the most frequent entry was:
“Do these pants make my ass look big?”

. . .

Well, Phatties, that's it! Until the next issue of Adipose Quarterly, don’t take any shit from emaciated Yalies or other adipophobes.

Just give ‘em the “Fatties United Conscientiously – KU” cheer.



French Bill Takes Chic Out of Being Too Thin

By DOREEN CARVAJAL
April 16, 2008


PARIS — In the capital of high fashion and ultrathin models, conservative French legislators adopted a pioneering law on Tuesday aimed at stifling a proliferation of Web sites that promote eating disorders with “thinspiration” and starvation tips.


The bill, approved by the lower house of Parliament, faces a Senate vote. If passed, it would take aim at any means of mass communication — including magazines and Web sites — that promote eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia with punishments of up to three years in prison and more than $70,000 in fines.


The legislation was sponsored by Valérie Boyer, a conservative lawmaker from the Bouches-du-Rhône region in the south of France, and was also backed by the government’s health minister, Roselyne Bachelot. It is one of the strongest measures proposed since the 2006 death of a Brazilian model, Ana Carolina Reston, from anorexia.


“We have noticed,” Ms. Boyer said in an interview with The Associated Press, “that the sociocultural and media environment seems to favor the emergence of troubled nutritional behavior, and that is why I think it necessary to act.”


But the proposed law was criticized by the French Federation of Couture. Didier Grumbach, the federation president, told The Associated Press that it was impossible to legislate body weight. “Never will we accept in our profession that a judge decides if a young girl is skinny or not skinny,” he said. “That doesn’t exist in the world, and it will certainly not exist in France.”


With the proposed law, the French legislators are seeking to tame a murky world of some 400 sites extolling “ana” and “mia,” nicknames for anorexia and bulimia. Since 2000, such Web sites have multiplied in many languages, offering blunt tips on crash dieting, bingeing, vomiting and hiding weight loss from concerned parents.


The bill would make it illegal to “provoke a person to seek excessive weight loss by encouraging prolonged nutritional deprivation that would have the effect of exposing them to risk of death or endangering health.”


Critics from the French Socialist Party complained that the bill was vaguely worded and rushed through the lower house by the U.M.P., the conservative party of President Nicolas Sarkozy.


Eating disorder experts also expressed doubts about whether such a law would help victims or create even more demand for the sites by publicizing them.


“Ultimately, I think it’s a mistake to ban them because I think that you’re going to be hard pressed to demonstrate in a very clear way that these sites have a direct negative affect,” said Michael Levine, a psychology professor at Kenyon College in Ohio whose specialty is eating disorders and the mass media.


As written, the proposed French law does not make it clear who would be ultimately responsible for the content of such sites — the content creator or the Internet service hosting the site.


An aide to Ms. Boyer, the lawmaker, said the U.M.P. expected the proposed law to be amended to address those questions. He added that the idea was to focus on institutions that promote eating disorders, noting that “we cannot exclude fashion shows if there is a problem of health” or the death of a model.

And that's the way it was in 1999: "Whistling Past Don Pardo"

Hey Folks -

It was in 1999. My mother was still alive, and she got a call from Aunt "Sis" to come to the hospital. Uncle Joe was not doing well.

- Uke Man

This is my Bible!! This is my gun!!

The despicable poster below shows exactly why
we need only good Christian fundamentalists in
the Army.

Young men should thump their Bibles!!
Not their guns!!

Morons for Jesus

Hey Folks -

Read it and weep.

What Robyn Blumner comments upon has been going on for some time now, and it bodes ill.

We good ol' god-fearin' 'mericans have no trouble being aghast over foreign religious fundamentalist nuts mixing church and state and God and guns. They are clearly evil-doers.

But ya just gotta support our Bible-thumpin, skin-head, fanatical, fundamentalist Christian troops (do you hate 'merica or sumpin??).

Maybe someday we'll have a Coup for Jesus and wake up with Rev. Hagee as President-for-Life with God, the commandments, and Creationism back in the schools and gays in concentration camps.

It's possible.

Praise Cheeses - Uke Man



Evangelical culture of U.S. Army is destructive
Monday, May 5, 2008 2:59 AM
By Robyn Blumner

Maybe the reason the misperception persists that there are no atheists in foxholes is that nonbelievers must either shut up about their views or be hounded out of the military.

Just ask Army Specialist Jeremy Hall, who is making a splash in the news because of the way his atheism was attacked by superiors and fellow soldiers while he was risking his life in service to his country.


Hall, 23, served two combat tours in Iraq, earning the Combat Action Badge. He's been stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., having been returned state-side early because the Army couldn't ensure his safety.

There is something deeply amiss when we send soldiers on a mission to engender peaceful coexistence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, yet our military doesn't seem able to offer religious tolerance to its own.


Hall recounts the events that led to his marginalization in a federal lawsuit he filed in Kansas in March. He is joined by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group devoted to assisting members of the military who object to the pervasive and coercive Christian proselytizing in our armed forces.

Hall's atheism became an issue soon after it became known. On Thanksgiving 2006 while stationed outside Tikrit, Hall politely declined to join in a Christian prayer before the holiday meal. The result was a dressing down by a staff sergeant who told him that as an atheist he needed to sit somewhere else.


In another episode, after Hall's gun turret took a bullet that almost found an opening, the first thing a superior wanted to know was whether Hall believed in Jesus now, not whether he was OK.

Then, in July, while still in Iraq, Hall organized a meeting of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. According to Hall, after things began, Maj. Freddy Welborn disrupted the meeting with threats, saying he might bring charges against Hall for conduct detrimental to good order and discipline, and that Hall was disgracing the Constitution. (I think the major has that backward.) Welborn has denied the allegations, but The New York Times reports that another soldier at the meeting said that Hall's account is accurate.


Hall claims that he was denied a promotion in part because he wouldn't be able to pray with his troops. He was returned from overseas because of physical threats from fellow soldiers and superiors. Things became so bad that he was assigned a bodyguard.

This is nothing new to Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and a former Air Force judge advocate general who served in the Reagan administration. Weinstein says that he has collected nearly 8,000 complaints, mostly from Christian members of the military tired of being force-fed a narrow brand of evangelical fundamentalism.


Weinstein, who co-wrote the book With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military, has documented how the ranks of our military have been infiltrated by members of the Officers' Christian Fellowship and other similar organ-izations. On its Web site, the OCF makes no secret of its mission, which is to "raise up a godly military" by enlisting "ambassadors for Christ in uniform."

Weinstein says OCF recruitment is easy in a strict command-subordinate military where the implied message is, if you don't pray the right way, your career might stall.

Beyond the mincemeat being made of church-state separation and religious liberty, it seems particularly combustible for our armed forces to be combining "end-times" Christian theology with military might. That's no way to placate Muslim populations around the world.


But there's no will for change. The military's virulent religious intolerance could be eradicated tomorrow with swift sanctions against transgressors. Instead, it's winked at, and those caught proselytizing suffer no consequence. It appears that brave men like Hall who simply wish to follow the dictates of their own conscience will be needing bodyguards for a long time to come.

Robyn Blumner writes for Tribune Media Services.
blumner@sptimes.com

Rest - temporary & eternal

Hey Folks -

Here's a poem of mine about age and mortality.

- Uke Man

The Earth is the Bedlam of the Universe

The Mad House

Hey Folks –

There’s an old joke that suggests:

“The Earth is the insane asylum of the universe.”

I’m not sure it’s a joke.

If you get old enough and you’ve been paying attention, a lot of what once seemed a guarantor of sanity loses its credibility, becomes a joke, or disappears altogether.

Santa and the Tooth Fairy quit coming around – imaginary friends who go “poof” before you really get to know them!!

Too many religious leaders who seemed so strong and wise are shown to be weak and venal, tied up defending contradictory dogma for personal, political, or institutional reasons (if they are not just crackpots or shysters to begin with).

Business, the focus of all society’s love and expectation, turns out to be an ungrateful and greedy master, expecting blind fealty and gratitude from employees but feeling no lordly responsibility toward their serfs, the community, or nation; bereft of humanity except in the legal personhood granted by incorporation (see "Supremes" below).

The “City Fathers,” and the state legislature too soon reveal their utter mediocrity and craven subservience to the earlier-mentioned money interests. The governor and the courts shuffle not far behind, maintaining a system of men-not-laws, serving certain men at the cost of the people’s justice and livelihood.

And then the congress - who are just state legislators with more expensive haircuts and greater guile - are discovered fattening up the grossest financial pythons, serving up ever larger portions of the people’s interests. And all this with the blessing of the shameless Supremes dancing to the music of the ruling class.

And then there’s the President.

Apparently, 28% of Americans still think the slacker presently in the White House (see "Supremes" above) is looking out for them, but the rest of us (after almost eight years) know better. Unfortunately, most of us think – after more than 200 years – that most of the other presidents were looking after us. Which brings me to my point.

Every election is a psychological examination of the inmates, an evaluation of our mental strength and stability, a measure of our rationality, an indicator of our place in the order of creation. Unfortunately we consistently are shown to be weak, unstable, and emotional; filling a space somewhere between monkeys and cows.

Evidence? Well, as pointed out in the recent book What’s the Matter with Kansas?, we consistently vote against our own interests - at the request of those who run our Bedlam.


What's the Matter with Kansas? made a splash, but it’s nothing new. Mark Twain in his Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court addressed the same issue; the Yankee describes the behavior of Southern whites regarding the interests of wealthy slave owners and the betrayal of their own:

It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries away, when the "poor whites" of our South who were always despised and frequently insulted by the slave-lords around them, and who owed their base condition simply to the presence of slavery in their midst, were yet pusillanimously ready to side with the slave-lords in all political moves for the upholding and perpetuating of slavery, and did also finally shoulder their muskets and pour out their lives in an effort to prevent the destruction of that very institution which degraded them.

Presently, the contemporary equivalent of Civil War era Southern whites seem pusillanimously willing to be manipulated by fear, patriotism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and obvious lies into voting for their continued degradation.

H. L. Mencken said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

That's why the owners of the asylum are rich.

- Uke Man

Stagecoach BBQ - historical building - Burns - April 29, 2008

Hey Folks -

I've had an association with the Stagecoach BBQ from its first days. Unfortunately, we've probably seen its last days, too.

I drove to South Bloomfield Tuesday after I heard it had burned. Below is a piece composed of video and stills from that day, mixed with stills from a happier time

- Uke Man