"Going on Strike From One's Culture"

Matt Taibbi with second thoughts about OccupyWallStreet:

Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It's about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become. If there is such a thing as going on strike from one's own culture, this is it. And by being so broad in scope and so elemental in its motivation, it's flown over the heads of many on both the right and the left.

That's a really good way to look at it: It's a bit bigger than we understand right now. And that's okay.

And not just "American society," I think it's "modern society."

Beating Non-Violent Protestors

These are big tough guys beating young men - and women - and really wailing on them - with nightsticks. This is just cowardly crappy shit.



And some more crap: UC Police Captain Margo Bennett said the protesters deserved it because they linked arms - and LINKING ARMS IS "AN ACT OF VIOLENCE."

I want to kill something.

Sailing From Sydney to...

I had a curious offer dropped in my lap yesterday: A friend of Christine's who lives here in Australia, but quite a distance away, bought a sailboat here in Sydney over the internet, and arrived yesterday to pick it up. He'll be sailing for home next week. He was supposed to be joined in that return trip by a friend—but the friend backed out. (Why? I'll tell you later.) So I've been invited along. The trip will take about two weeks on the water, traveling constantly.

Hmm. Haven't made my mind up...completely. (I've had just a wee bit of experience behind the wheel of a boat on a seiner in Alaska. I've only been an afternoon on a sailboat.)

Christine's been on the phone to insurance companies. This could be her big break...

Coca-Cola Overturns Bottle-Ban in Grand Canyon

Because Coca-Cola should be deciding national park policy. Makes perfect sense:

Weary of plastic litter, Grand Canyon National Park officials were in the final stages of imposing a ban on the sale of disposable water bottles in the Grand Canyon late last year when the nation’s parks chief abruptly blocked the plan after conversations with Coca-Cola, a major donor to the National Park Foundation.

Stephen P. Martin, the architect of the plan and the top parks official at the Grand Canyon, said his superiors told him two weeks before its Jan. 1 start date that Coca-Cola, which distributes water under the Dasani brand and has donated more than $13 million to the parks, had registered its concerns about the bottle ban through the foundation, and that the project was being tabled. His account was confirmed by park, foundation and company officials.

And listen to this crap, from Coca-Cola:

She also characterized the bottle ban as limiting personal choice. “You’re not allowing people to decide what they want to eat and drink and consume,” she said.

Coca-Cola is worried about our personal rights...to consume it's products in our national parks. Makes you want to stick a flag pin up your ass.

Occupying Foreclosed Homes

I haven't hear of this happening before, but it sounds like a really good idea. Could see it really taking off.

 

Sacha Baron Cohen as Lord Monckton

This is possibly the funniest thing that has ever been done in the whole history of doing things:



Lord Monckton.

Via.

My FaceBook Music Store

I've set up a CDBaby FaceBook Music Store where you can listen to and buy my songs. You lucky devils. (And the telephone gives you some idea of when this photo was taken. Maybe the sweater, too?)