I read a few chapters of a book — these chapters going into the positive and negative fault-lines of the “Millenial Generation”.  It’s interesting that the Narcissism matter is picked up and tacked right back to — in particular — the contemporaneous reporting on the rise of the Baby Boomer Generation.  (See the Time Magazine article that referenced them as “The Person of the Year” in terms of being GREAT!)  But, as reported in the widely circulating essay on the poll, which showed that the number of people in this age group who respond positively to the question of whether they consider themselves a “Special Person”, the number has sky-rocketed.  I suppose this may come from a lull to Cynical Jaded Generation X — popular reporting says we moved from “Latch-key kid” to “Helicopter Parents” — an item which, I suspect in the end excuses any of today’s “Latch-key Kid” parents.

Two anecdotal suggestions in the book are highly amusing.  A fifth grade class is polled for their “Favorite Freedoms”.  The first place goes to “Freedom of Expression”, which is appropriate enough in today’s technology of communications.  Second place went to “Freedom to Dress as We Want”.  The author does not suggest what I think is obvious: we have a highly parochial self interest even more than cultural attitude shifts.  I can’t tell if the author suggests what may be at the heart of the fourth favorite freedom — “To Marry whoever we want” — is acknowledges as a matter of gay rights — the teacher muses that “Washington and Jefferson wouldn’t have come to that one.”

The other anecdote is the report of employers shuffling to placate the “New Generation” and its socialization.  A lot of need for constant reinforcement and encouragement.  They need to throw confetti by the bushel-full to “reward” and point out individual goods.  It’d be a trend I’ve no use for myself — but one of the bright sides of the Economic Doldrums and Employer Market might be to halt this one.

Isn’t it amazing, isn’t it amazing that two or three years ago on this program when I first found Woodrow Wilson on this program and said, oh, my gosh! Look at how evil this guy is! And everybody do you remember? I mean, people still do it:  “Glenn Beck is obsessed with Woodrow Wilson.” Isn’t it incredible that this is the guy they’ve modeled themselves after? This is the guy! Out of all the presidents that everybody knew nothing about.

By the way, a listener sent me or brought to the, what do you call it, the American Revival a big picture, a framed newspaper: Woodrow Wilson is dead. I have that hanging over my desk in my office. I love it. It’s quite possibly the best gift ever given. I love it.

Hm.  “Out of all the president that everybody knew nothing about”.  Wilson?

So just know that you now and I told you this, what, three months ago, four months ago? And I was overwhelmed by the response of this audience. But I want to give you that loophole just as I said to Goldline three weeks ago, and I told them four months ago, and I told them eight months ago: Look, if the heat becomes too hot in the kitchen, I understand. No hard feelings. And I say that to you. It may be in your best interest to not visibly stand by me because they are going to come after. And I want you to understand that this movement is not about me. It never has been about me. It’s an insult it’s an insult to America to make it about me or the president or anything else. This is about universal principles. This is about nature’s god and nature’s laws. And so if they take me down, you have to be standing. And if they take you down, somebody else has to be standing. We need to really view ourselves as nonarmed, nonviolent cells. Because they really think that if they can take me down, it’s over. But it’s not. You’ll never sit down. I know you. You are exactly like me. You’ll never sit down. If they take me off the air, if they take me off radio or television and, mark my words, they will, I’m coming to your house. I’m coming to your park. I’m coming to your church. I’ll come to your school. I’ll come to your car. I’ll come where anybody will come and listen. If I’m just mowing my lawn and you drive by my house and I’m completely unemployed and you drive by and your window’s open, you’ll hear me preaching it.

A chilling vision of things to come.  Glenn Beck.  Coming to your park.  Coming to your church.  Standing on the street corner.  Yelling into your window.  Preaching it.  Imagine driving by, and you see Glenn Beck bellowing into the air — you only briefly catch two words of his rant, ” — Woodrow Wilson — “.

You know… The Obama Adminstration… reportedly fired… Shirley Sherrod… after getting word… that Glenn Beck… the guy who has announced he will be standing on street corners yelling into your car windows… will be ranting about Sherrod on his television program.

Something about this chart seems relevant.

We are, generically, a “Center Right” nation — as this chart suggests of how “independents” view themselves.  Republicans view Democrats as something of a monolithic Ideological force in a way Democrats don’t view Republicans.  Very odd political dynamics, I must say.
I guess “Tea Party” is the control group?  Beck’s words, from the “9/12 Movement”, suggests about how the whole thing would work out if they charted where the “Tea Party” was asked to place everyone.

Quick.  Cheerleading.  A sport or not?

It depends on what your need for cheerleading.  If a school system is trying to match parity with male and female athletics and needs to use it as a crutch, yes.  If that’s at the expense of cutting a girls’ sports program in budgetary decisions, then from the point of view of the participants and advocates of the cut sport — no.  For the purpose of respect of the commitment and athleticism needed there, yes.

It’s all a mass of contradictions, definitions massaged to fit regulation.
Yes, I know the historical need for Title IX.  I have heard and read on the horror stories of Socialization to deflate any sense of competitiveness and facilitate gender roles — the weird and absurd variations of basketball in Girls’ Gym Class.  It did engender some pretty jagged edges in terms of opportunity.  I knew a college professor who nabbed a field hockey scholarship from a scrambling university right as Title IX came into effect — and, you know, she made good use of a somewhat contrived opportunity.

Decades out, I just have to wonder.

But then again, keeping a jaded eye on the news accounts of the Great College Conference Shake-up — I think we nearly had a PAC-50 conference? — on behest of the business of the only real large cash-flow in the college sports’ arena.  The quasi-professional world of college football.  Balanced this off with the budgetary woes of various state universities — what decisions university deans are making on behest of whom, and I don’t know who is serving who.

But again, I agree with something in the sentiments expressed by satiric Onion Noam Chomsky:

Chomsky, who often defines himself as a libertarian socialist, then changed the channel to ESPN, taking a moment to acknowledge the role of professional sports as a “weapon of mass distraction,” keeping the American people occupied with trivial competitions so they do not focus on opposing the status quo with grassroots movements against foreign and domestic policies that ultimately harm them.

“Stupid NBA playoffs,” Chomsky said. “At least it’s better than that NCAA March Madness crap. A university is supposed to be a center of learning that questions the state’s crafted messaging, not an entertainment factory.”

We may as well throw college football in particular out of its quasi-professional state, and let it stand on its business acumen as a business of Double AA and Triple AAA minor league football league.  Give the athletes compensation for their skills as the market will bear, and this will quit making a mockery of the phrase “student athlete” as well the sometimes equal mockery of fan bases largely composed of people who’ve never attending college or that college particular.

Test run that one before deciding how to approach anything else.  In this first adjustment, we will have a different dynamic in place for the men who rave against cutting, say, a wrestling program and take their spite out on a  womens’ sport kept.

The Overton Window.  When “The Public Option” becomes the edge of accepted political discussion to be traded away and off of, when “Single Payer” walks into the room, it is not visible and ceases to exist, and slides to the accepted point.  This is the example of such a thing.

The interesting thing with FAIR, and this FAIR article that FAIR cites with good frequency  is that we have gotten to a point where Bill Clinton and his presidency is not defined, generally, as “Liberal”.  This is in part to leave that narrative for Obama, and in part because the political need to place him there has subsided.
There are certain caveats in our fiction-laced political universe. The NRA has tacked to a goodly weird “absolutist” position, such that as gun control has fallen off the political table nationally, it marches forward.  Was that National Parks rally a show of thanks to the Obama Administration for signing legislation allowing people to carry guns in national parks?  Meantime, certain niche gun groups stage “Take Your Guns to Starbucks” rallies — theatrical curiosities all.
I can’t tell if the NRA endorsement of Harry Reid is a chink in the weird politics of the NRA or not.  Lest Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate is either Schumer or Durbin, and the chances that gun control just may slide back on the table increases.

Say something for Russ Feingold.  He voted against the Financial Reform package, for the misgivings you’d expect.  Criticized here in that it made Scott Brown the point-person for final approval.  Mostly we’re just back to the problem of the 60/40 rule, and the problem with the significance of what it means that 60 is the new 50 always.  But in “Overton Window” terms, this whence the “Perfect becomes the enemy of the good” rule falls apart, “perfect” and “good” being relative concepts prone to good tugs of “acceptable” definitions.  Being autonomous Senators has to mean something.  Feingold, and company’s, bluff of what they were willing to settle for was called with the Health Care Reform package — in the end, passing something was more meaningful than passing nothing.  With regard to financial reform, the problem facing Feingold was the difference of degrees in what the financial industry’s pressure beared on the Senate.

With respect to the autonomous Senator Jim Webb — yep, I knew this editorial was coming — only a matter of when, not if.  How did I know?  Because I read his book.
‘Tis the price Democrats paid to barely edge out a victory against a “Macaca” tossing Incumbent in the capital state of the old Confederacy.  There are a few things that might be said about the editorial — a theory of affirmative action is that we may just as well slide it to class, and it will manage to pick up race on a defacto basis.  Read up on the legacies of the “Mudsill Theory” to come up with the historical contours of class and race.
But if Shirley Sherrod should have a conversation with Obama about race, maybe she should also check in and converse with Jim Webb — arguably the point at which Webb stands is to ask not to befall those poor white farmers that Sherrod ended up helping.  This poll question comes back to the front, and I guess Webb falls right in with them.
It’s curious that the awkwardly discussed discourse on how “Obama’s experiences differs from the general black experience”, bubbled about in the 2008 campaign, resurface with regard to Sherrod.

Frustration with Obama and his administration’s treatment of Sherrod stem back to what it tells us about that “Overton Window”.  Watch Shephard Smith on Fox News speak of the problem here, and the phrase that plucks out here is “widely discredited website that has had inaccurate postings of videos in the past“.  Widely considered as such is not widely considered enough.  The term should long be affixed to Breitbart long time ago.  Instead, the Democratic Congress stripped federal funds for ACORN, and that particular story lives on.  The “Overton Window” placement equivalent of Breitbart is — perhaps Michael Moore.  Watching this odd little tiff with Rachel Maddow and Bill O’reilly, the telling point with O’reilly comes with his statement of incongruity — “And you have to be kidding with this fake ACORN scandal stuff. Unbelievable… do you live in this country?” — I’ll just say that he’d excoriate Moore for far less than Breitbart’s sins.

1974?  Seminal date in the history of things.  Just as, what, 1958?
1974 was when Larouche started fingering the British!
Lyndon LaRouche and his associates were ALWAYS right about the British. I, and about 100 or slightly more, of our associates, have served with LaRouche in the “anti-British imperialism campaign” of 1974-2010, a thirty-six year period, during which we often deployed for seven days/week. This campaign began “officially” in the early morning hours of January 1, 1974, when a plot to assassiate LaRouche was thwarted, in the course of the which, British authorship of that plot, was not only definitively exposed, but linked to a much bigger game.

Go ahead and make fun of Lyndon Larouche, but when the Mossad, the Freemasons, and the House of Windsor come after your pancreas DONT COME CRYING TO ME.

And with that warning…
Years ago, someone — college aged — posted something on youtube.  An interview with a LYMer manning a table just outside an Art College (or maybe the UW) in Seattle.  It was this passive allowance with mock agreement on whatever the LYMer said, a phony phone number exchanged, all leading to an agreement to a meeting / encounter that never happened.  There was a line in the video that was quite good — the interviewer asked, “What do you think of the students’ art here?”  The LYMer answered with a feh, and a statement that “They aren’t even interested in launching a new Renaissance!”

This production from the LYM — fails to ignite a new Renaissance.
Which is just as well.  We are on the verge of a New Dark Ages, inevitible if Obama is not removed from office before the date of Lyndon Larouche’s next birthday in September, you’ll hear after 5 minutes on this Internet radio broadcast.  I don’t know what to make of that thing — struggle past the minute and a half of the “Everything Politics” rap and see how long you can survive this.  I didn’t make it to hear Kesha Rogers.

I am not sure what I am supposed to be on the look-out on Larouche’s birthday.  It’s apparently another “Phase Shift” vaguity — it’s all over even if nothing tangible happens.  Seeing that the concept is always that on these days, 14th Century Dark Ages beckon — I’ll go ahead and say that unless 1 Billion people on Planet Earth die out within a week, Larouche will be wrong once again, and this Doomsday Cult can go ahead and call it quits, and — I don’t know, split off to work to elect Tom Tancredo or Alvin Greene.

I’m reading this fan of Larouchian economics.
In my blog dated June 27, 2010, I say that Lyndon LaRouche (1922- ) is one of seventeen ‘big thinkers.’ (click) He became one of these thinkers when he modernized the economy that Jesus Christ spoke about in Ch. 24 of Matthew in the New Testament.
Wow.  Was this part of the work he came up with in prison with Jim Bakker?

The content of the natural economy is measured annually with pie charts. A pie chart example is shown below. As an economy grows, more and more pie charts are necessary to study the natural growth. This natural economy will move humans from planet to planet.

All right.  All this time I thought the only useful graph for the Larouche organization was this one:

  But I guess not.  They’re all into pie charts? 

I’ve got a good pie chart.  It’s right here.  I regret to say that the chart is already out of date, and the situation has deteroiated since.  I better get the situation rectified before the Wimar Hyperinflationary Triple Curve sets in again.

Say, WHERE’S MY WEIMAR INFLATION?  July 16th has passed.  There is no Weimar Inflation.  These things have a romantic glean to them — 60 percent of respondents to an Alex Jones website poll forsee a “Road Warrior Future”, I imagine because these 60 percent want to experience the thrill of one of their favorite science fiction dystopias.

Here’s something interesting.  A case of a person looking out over the material online and coming to one conclusion about Larouche — “Hey!  Kesha Rogers!”.
And another who comes to a different conclusion.
Well, I imagine they’re just seeking to affirm their own biases and see in the web what they want.

What’s fantastic for them is how the web provides a useful recruiting platform.  Check this one out!

…………………………………………………………
Pleasanton4Life — This IS exactly what we need in this country. I’m definitely going to their townhall meeting in Livermore this Friday.

livermore925 —  Now, I normally don’t agree with LaRouche’s controversial ideas, but for some reason he is making a lot of sense to me. I found myself even donating $50 to get one of his books and DVDs. […] I think their Townhall info is at our Public Library this Friday starting at 3pm. I’ll see you there!

Nancy — Yeah, seems like you are a bit cooky Stacey. I’m not sure if your a pro-Obama freak, but I think the message is correct. I got a membership just recently and probably will go to the town hall on Friday. Don’t drink the kool-aid Stacey. I recommend you listen to Savage Nation to get your facts straight. Summer Shields was on there too!  (Wait.  Did Summer Shields get an interview on Savage?)

Tri-Valley Teacher – You seem to have a wrong definition of totalitarian fascism. The only fascist I see who is hurting my family and friends is Obama. I don’t know much about LaRouche, but anyone with the balls to put a Hitler mustache on this insane “empty-suit” community organizer you call President is good with me.  I would suggest you pick up a few history books, because the policies being rammed down our throats by the Obama team, is literally and silently killing people.
When I went to the LaRouche website I personally enjoyed this discussion at this link:
(link to Harley Schlanger excitedly talking with Larouche about Basement tehniques linking the Asteroid Belt with exciting new princples in confronting the British Empire)
And, I have often asked myself, why can’t this President (and the last one as well), engage in this quality of dialogue, with the American people.

Jeff –  I’ve been a Democrat all my life, my parents were FDR Democrats and switched over in the Carter days. I’ve felt the same need to switch over my card to a more independent ticket considering the disgrace and highly disappointing year and a half.
 Everything, this country has fought for. We were pioneers in almost everything. Now, what can I really say to my children. “Oh wait, we have a black president.” Well, who gives a fly F@#$, I’m BLACK, what the heck does that mean if he is destroying our country.
If I had the time, since I’m barely making it because of Obama’s “economic recovery”, I would protest with those young lads.  I’ll give whatever time I have to see this guy out. When is that Townhall meeting?
……………………………………………..

What with Jeff, Tri-Valley Teacher, Nancy, livermore925, and Pleasantown4life all in attendence, That meeting  — on “Our Extraterrestrial Imperiative” — must have raked in the big bucks, moved ideas about, and landed the necessary signatures to become an official write-in candidate.

It turns out that a group of Lyndon LaRouche supporters were in town to drum up support for write-in candidate Summer Shields to face Nancy Pelosi for a seat in the 8th Congressional District. This seemed odd to me as Tracy is in the 11th Congressional District. They were merely looking for supporters to help in their campaign. They were told “it was a good area”. […]  I’m not sure whether they got enough signatures or they decided too much controversy and publicity. Now I just have to wait for the next sign.

Kesha Rogers held a chorus in Sugar Land Town Center yesterday.  Still haven’t seen her prize winning 4th of July Parade float.  There will be an ice cream social at Ben and Jerry’s tomorrow.  Today there’s an um… unspecified location… discussion about Leibniz.  I’m sure it’s fascinating.  It’s sure to defeat Pete Sessions in November!

Meanwhile, over in Rachel Brown’s purview:
Today’s volunteer, sporting a tricorn hat, had set up a table with a poster reading “Pull over, stop Obama.” There did not appear to be much room in which passing motorists could comply.

Title of blog post taken from a David Frum post.  Some of David Frum’s best friends are ex-larouchies…

And we come closer to the vision of Igor Panarin.  I’m sure “Russia Today” will run a five minute story on Zach Wamp’s comments, and pull it alongside Igor Panarin’s map.  (Russia Today has been on the cutting edge in interviewing the “New Black Panther” leaders.  Them and Fox News, who I think has been the only media outlet that’s had any use for them over the years.)
Or, you know, apparently 60 percent of people responding to a poll at an Alex Jones website believe that we’re on the verge of the scenario in the movie “Road Warrior.”  That’s, I think, a product of who responds to a poll at an Alex Jones website.

Okay.  Zach Wamp, ladies and gentlemen.  Zach Wamp, the distinguished Congress critter of Tennessee, running for Governor.  The spirit of John Calhoun hovers about.

“I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government,” said Wamp during an interview with Hotline OnCall.

He lauded Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who first floated the idea of secession in April ’09, for leading the push-back against health care reform, adding that he hopes the American people “will send people to Washington that will, in 2010 and 2012, strictly adhere” to the constitution’s defined role for the federal government.

I admit that I am torn between a feeling of “Okay.  Buh Bye” to the old Confederate States and a revived Yankee Martial Jingoism.
All right, Zach Wamp.  You’re on.  Civil War being a Dual on a Mass Scale, you’ve essentially challenged the North to a Dual.  Let’s do it.  You guys always mock Obama (and any Democrat) as being “soft” on the military, implying a pacifism they never deserve, but much of their voting base wishes there was some truth to?  We can put that to the test.  Bring the troops out of Afghanistan, and put march them on South.  (And, I guess, Confederate President Rick Perry can decide whether to stay or leave in Afghanistan while they fight the New “War of Northern Aggression”.)

You always say “The South Shall Rise Again.”  Well we say, “The South Shall Burn Again!”

To reconcile the conflicting feelings — maybe we can just go trash the place, win the war for “Union”, then pull a sucker punch and announce not only the right to Secession, but indeed a demand for Secession.  If they want re-entry into the Union, we’ll go all “Experialism” on their asses and go to war over the issue.

…

On the other hand, this should close that partisan enthusiasm gap for the Democratic Party.  Why you should vote?  To lead Zach Wamp into further insanity — that’s good enough.

A few weeks ago, there was this youtube video which was making the rounds.  It was from some comedy troupe or show “The Whitest Kids You Know”, and it was a meta-commentary parody campaign ad for “Clint Webb for Senate”.  Here it is — the first 30 seconds are extrenuous.

Now, skip to the 1:29 mark.  “Here’s an unflattering picture of my opponent.  Here’s a quote of his taken out of context.”

It’s a good “quote”, well done.  What makes this punchline work is the meaninglessness of the quote.  “… Eat the United States”.  And with that, I have an easy short-hand for various character assassinations we see in the world of politics.

It’s interesting to see the shiftings for the Shirley Sherrod story when I go to “google blog” aggregator.  What I’ve seen over the last couple of days is it at the top of the page, and at first conservative blogs dominated under Andrew Breitbart’s website.  Next time I checked, liberal blogs were at the top.  Then the next I checked, sure enough, the conservative counter-attack: Newsbusters (the media watch-blog that uncovers the Liberal Bias of Jay Leno monolouges) — using the phrase “Disgraced Shirley Sherrod Blames”.  Today I look — almost 24 hours since I was last online — and see a pretty good balance.  Mediate starts off two different story-trees here.
Beyond this story, the next story covered in blogoland — yesterday, Lindsey Lohan was next, today she’s not on the front page.  The first Celebrity story is that Christina Applegate is Pregnant.  Somehow I doubt this will have much staying power, and the next time I look it will not be there — perhaps Lohan will knock it down again.

I would like to think that Andrew Breitbart’s credibility is forever shaken, as with Fox News.  But it should have been knocked away after ACORN — the problem here is that that story never got fully contextualized into public conciousness, and if you ask randomly to marginally politically aware public what happened with ACORN, they’d provide an answer full of falsities.  Andrew Breitbart is arguably the driving force of the Republican Party at this precise moment in time.   You allow one thing to pass, you’ll get to the next thing — Tom Vilsack has itchy fingers.

Swerve a little bit further, and I see a little bit of argument that was bad about Shirley Sherrod’s comments — not the white / black thing, but the part where she confirms the “poor / rich” “Class Warfare”.  So the Class Warfare continues, I suppose, as defined by Warren Buffet.  There’s a bit of interesting things happening on that score in this political environment, maybe I’ll get to it.

I once had the displeasure of seeing a Poetry Slam.  More than one poem made reference to Fred Phelps, who — in cayse you don’t know — is kind of merely an extreme example of homophobia and not representative of anything much.  International media have been known to reference the “Westboro Baptist Church” as though it were more than it is.

A blast brought to you by Fred Phelps and the “Westboro Baptist Church”.

Are you kidding?!  If these people would spend even some of the energy that they spend on these comic books, reading the Bible, well no high hopes here.

They have turned comic book characters into idols, and worship them they do!

Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made: And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.

It is time to put away the silly vanities and turn to God like you mean it. The destruction of this nation is imminent – so start calling on Batman and Superman now, see if they can pull you from the mess that you have created with all your silly idolatry.

And with that, Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, so-called, will stand about outside the San Diego Convention center and picket the largest of comic book — and “pop culture” — nerd conventions.

It’s about time somebody took to task the whole line about creating “New Mythology” — like, those Silver Age DC Superman Gorilla-themed comics are definitely tapping Homer.

… and uncover the whole secret alternative lifestyles activities — how gay marriage will lead to other marriages and perpetuating the Gay Agenda.
… and all.
… and all.
… and all.

On the other hand, Fred Phelps’s God is about as vidictive and fascist and demanding as Superman has been  over the years.

Anyway… You know, Phelps is in danger of falling into self parody.