Archive for the ‘Opinion’ Category

London Police Lose Free Speech Encounter

The Love Police in the U.K. went to the Tower of London with their cameras and a megaphone to utilize their right to free speech. The guards at the Tower objected and called the London police. What you see in the video is the leader of the Love Police group speaking very intelligently [...]


Kindles and Little Bookstores

I don’t understand much about the book business.  But I do know what makes a person want to go and be somewhere.  I read a good blog post at The Devil’s Accountant about the troubles small bookstores have with the existing book business and the emerging business of ebook publishing.  Small bookstores have to purchase [...]


School Guy Brags About Watching Kids with Laptop Cameras

The show is called Digital Nation. This segment is called How Google Saved a School. Well, really? How did it? Come on now, Frontline. Let’s get real. There’s an assistant principal bragging on video about how he watches the students through their laptop cameras and finds out if they are using their [...]


Film: Typography

In Ronnie Bruce’s short film Typography, poet Taylor Mali lets it all hang out about how people talk today. Hipsters. Kids. Cooliodoolios who don’t want to sound too committal about anything. Every utterance is just a little fart with a question mark at the end. ‘You know?’
I don’t happen to have [...]


Barnes & Noble Nook is a Dreadful Failure

I’ve been so waiting with my bated breath and all for this magical Nook machine from Barnes & Noble.  I was in a right dither tonight about an hour and a half ago as I shoved my reading glasses into my pocket, put my regular glasses on my face and piled into my car for [...]


What’s Wrong with Scientology’s Ideas?

I am impervious to the persuasions of all clubs, organizations and religions.  I’ve read the entire Old Testament and know that god has never spoken a single word to any living human being in history.  I’ve been in terribly close proximity to Catholic priests for extended periods of time, argued with them and sat gritting [...]


Fake Artist Sues Photographer for Taking Pics of Public Sidewalk Art

Some abject fool of an artist named Jack Mackie made a deal with the city of Seattle to embed an artwork called Dancers’ Series: Steps into a sidewalk back in 1979.  Then a photographer named Mike Hipple went and did a logical thing; he took a photograph of a public sidewalk with the artwork in [...]


U.S. Missionaries and the Kidnapping of Haitian Children

Whenever I hear someone say, ‘God will make everything clear,’ I know that I’m dealing with one of three types: an imbecile, a psychopath, or a criminal. When I saw one of the ‘missionaries’ arrested for possible child trafficking in Haiti last week use this phrase from her cell I immediately suspected that she [...]


Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines Docks Ship for Fun and Sun in Stricken Haiti

Perhaps the most disgusting company on the face of the planet has made itself known today: Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines has docked the cruise ship Independence of the Seas at a private beach in Haiti which is fenced off from the rest of the stricken nation, for some fun and sun along the beach.  The [...]


Haiti May Be Providing Slave Labor to U.S. Corporations

During the earthquake crisis in Haiti I have continued to ask the same question of my friends: How, in the 21st Century, can a country so close to the richest nation on earth be so poor?  No one seems to have an answer except for Pat Robertson (who is not a friend, by the way) [...]


Haiti Disaster and Web Responsibility – Or Lack of It

Yesterday, after cruising around the Web to visit my favorite literature, poetry, film and animation web sites and blogs, I went into a profound snit about how some of our most established and respected blogs have totally ignored a major catastrophe that has and is still killing tens of thousands of people in Haiti.  It [...]


No Water In Haiti After Earthquake

There’s no water in Haiti.  With approximately 6,000,000 people looking for water this is a truly horrific situation.  Many thousands more people are going to die within several days if enormous amounts of water are not somehow delivered to them.  With a single jammed airport in Port-au-Prince, it seems like a nearly impossible task.
You can [...]


Bill Clinton Talks About How to Help Haiti

Bill Clinton offers ideas on how to help Haiti after the earthquake. Whenever this guy opens his mouth I feel like someone is doing something to help.


Haiti Earthquake Help is Slow to Arrive

Here’s CNN footage of survivors trying to help people trapped in collapsed buildings. Medical help is not significantly present in Haiti at the moment. It is a shame that in the western hemisphere, so close to the richest nation on earth, it takes days to get a little medical assistance into a crisis [...]


Videos From Haiti During and After Earthquake

This video shows shocking scenes of the carnage and death just after the earthquake in Haiti on Tuesday, January 12.  It is extremely graphic.  It shows dead and severely injured people.  This is terrible and tragic news from a desperately poor nation that has no medical infrastructure to deal with the injured.
YouTube’s CitizenTube Channel is [...]


Bob Dylan’s Pink Christmas People

I love Bob Dylan’s recent album, Christmas in the Heart.  Listened to it many times on Christmas day.  This is his video for Little Drummer Boy.  The people do seem awfully pink but maybe it’s just my eyes playing tricks on me.


Transportation Security Agents Want Nude Photos of Children at Airports

Many airports in the United States and the United Kingdom have installed new full body scanners.  They are easy to spot.  You walk in and a security guard tells you to raise your arms out to the side.  Then what happens is they take a naked photograph of you.  Naked.  Nude.  Bare-assed.  Birthday suit.  Free [...]


Freedom of Expression? Really? When Was the Last Time You Heard a Slave Speak Freely?

I found this Amnesty International video over at Silliman’s Blog today. It’s about the power of words to help defend freedom of expression around the world.  I’m all for that.  But can you take me seriously as a wealthy member of the Western world’s corporate structure?  The Amnesty video mentions a journalist jailed for [...]


Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is a Beacon For a New Decade

Read the following remarks at your own risk.  The post begins one way and finishes in another.
The online film journal Senses of Cinema has an excellent essay by Pedro Blas Gonzalez called Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: An Existential Odyssey.  He examines 2001: A Space Odyssey from an existential viewpoint.  He focuses primarily on astronaut Dave Bowman’s [...]


Obama Wants Our Money for Insurance Companies Just in Time for Christmas

Hey man, I’m a lifelong Democrat and I have always voted for liberal causes and I truly believe that we suffered under 8 years of despotic rule by an unintelligent baboon of a criminal in George Bush.  But I think we got taken and voted for an insurance salesman in 2008.  President Obama has done [...]