Monday, October 31, 2011

Illegal Entry



Our corporate-owned government seems variously intolerant of U.S. citizens utilizing their own parks in order to exercise first amendment rights to assemble to reddress grievances, yet nary a peep do we hear from same regarding a major foreign-owned propaganda campaign set up in the heart of our publicly-owned broadcast sector (this refers to the obvious fact that Fox –Faux- News is a transparently biased, pro-corporate misinformation operation).

Another parallel we could draw is that great resources are spent to prevent entry or expel poor foreigners (illegals? aliens?) from our nation yet, nary a peep again, when a foreign billionaire saunters in and commandeers a major media outlet, fanning ignorance and bigotry and distorting our political process. I think there might be some peeping if the foreign association were, rather than a pro-capitalist ideologue, a more or less objective presence (compared to U.S. media) such as say, Al-jazeera or perhaps Britain’s The Guardian.

The slogan 1% and 99% is imperfect since it is actually the ideologue-faction of the top 20% and their deluded co-conspirators coopting our Democracy. But it is brilliant short-hand for discussing and highlighting just how important and “classified” class is in the U.S. To raise questions about equity and fairness, distribution of wealth and political influence is to set off a knee-jerk chorus of “class warfare” from the ubiquitous brownshirt punditry. But the short-hand finesses the usual media censorship-by-omission, reaching many who know in their hearts but rarely find pundit confirmation that the game is rigged by… the 1%.

I know a guy who stands on Peachtree Street sometimes, holding up signs that if you could leisurely read, and have him explain, you still might not get. I’ve tried to refer him to the useful word succinct but he just looks at me, as perplexed as I am about his message. Now I’ve got an example of how to reach people driving by at 30mph, a sign that even Faux News can’t completely ignore nor effectively mock. Madison Avenue is envious of a movement that came up with a slogan that just might nudge the conscience, or self-interest, of elected officials who otherwise routinely succumb to the seemingly omnipotent campaign dollar. Until we institute public financing of elections, we the 99% can only hope.

wherein Hinson & Haze regard the afterlife

Monday, October 24, 2011

Opiate of Empire




William Manchester’s book title, A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance, Portrait of an Age, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Well worth the read, despite it’s awkward title. Published in 1992 the book is timeless in that it portrays human dysfunction and folly as they constantly triumph over reason and compassion. This is certainly at odds with popular notions of religion and European conquest. Manchester comments that, Christianity survived despite medieval Christians, not because of them. If this book were more widely read, that might not hold true, Christianity might not survive.

This is for many of the same reasons that Richard Dawkins raises in his book The God Delusion. The whole enterprise is made up of insupportable beliefs, superstition in a word, and when people become aware that what they believe is in error it is hard to not have the belief evaporate. Of course the option is always there to deny the information, certainly the course embraced by the medieval mind - and with a vengeance. Manchester documents how the “Holy Roman Empire” was corrupt and venal, little above the Roman orgy and bloody pastime of execution and coup. When the Reformation arrived in reaction it was in true reaction – dogma shifted only slightly, as evidenced by the Puritanism still plaguing our shores. But the penalty for doctrinal deviance remained the fiery stake - most of the fun was gone. One can gain an appreciation for what is meant by “freedom and democracy”, flawed and limited as it is in our world, and threatened ever as it is by the constant resurgence of the medieval mind, whether that manifests in whatever religion or whatever political ideology arising out of the great dysfunction of ego.

The brutality of the age is relieved by the incredible beauty and majesty of Renaissance art, ironically created under the patronage of the most avaricious and ruthless of princes, kings and popes, otherwise seemingly fiercely competing with each other for the prize of most depraved. This mentality of course had to be exported. And exported it was, to regions not always but sometimes, quite advanced in their humanitarianism. The Portugese found their way around the horn of Africa to the riches of the east. The Spanish, English and French elected to squabble over as much as they could reach to the west. It is almost funny to imagine the armor-clad representative of a King stepping on the shores of a continent larger than the home country, planting a flag and claiming the whole shebang for his Sovereign. I was unaware of the voyage of Magellan, leaving Spain with a convoy of five ships and arriving back in Seville three years later, having circumnavigated the globe. Of the 265 person crew, only 18 survived, Magellan not among them, having perished in a fit of fundamental religious foolishness. This could be a metaphor for our own time, where superstitious beliefs in a “free market” and borders and races and scarcity carry us down the rapids to the rocks below the falls.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Hinson & Haze, episode 11.


wherein Haze, once again, challenges the status quo

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Hinson & Haze, episode 10.

wherein our trendy tourists visit the Salt Palace

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Hinson & Haze, episode 9.


wherein the Cucumber factor is elucidated

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Hinson & Haze, episode 8.


Wherein Hinson & Haze encounter the cucumber factor