So some forms of the lovely human papillomavirus become genital warts, while other forms of this really common virus lead to cervical cancer in women. Oh wait, surprise, it can lead to penile and anal cancer too, so it’s not just a women’s health issue. But Texas (AKA “Jesus’ favorite state”) has pushed the envelope by recently making an executive order requiring sixth grade girls to be immunized against this virus, presumably before they have a chance to have too many partners. Christians are up in arms, because the immunizations are a slap in the face the “viginity policy” they expect to protect youth from STDs, but others are upset for a completely different reason: Gov. Rick Perry’s ties to the Merck corporation, the company that made and sells the antiviral. Merck is pushing to have the immunization requirements added in other states and in each case there will be questioning of the links between the legislator presenting the law and the powerful lobby.

You don’t think of many of the required immunizations for kids being as contraversial, after all polio erradicated in the 1st world, right? But the lines get murkier as wealthy corporations hold more of the keys to our lives and health. In the film The Corporation there is the proposal that eventually corporations will hold the patents to entire gentic sequences, i.e. Life Itself, or at least a desired parameter of ‘healthy human’. Sci fi dystopian mindfuck here we come-

For any who may not know, there is an archive called zinewiki. It features both of my favorites, very influencial on me, Cometbus and Dishwasher. I had casual correspondence via snailmail with both Arron and Pete back in the ’90s. Ah, snailmail-

I’ve been exposed to some AM/right wing radio recently. Obnoxious, of course, but occasionally it’s intersting to check in with the squares and fascists. Isn’t it interesting, the psychology behind it all, constant demonization of the “liberals” and the culture of acceptance, every day some new outrage to be worked up about, and how the whole machine is operating on ANGER. More than some ‘upstanding solid citizen’ shit, like ‘perhaps we should pity and teach the misguided heathens’, fuck that, they want conflict and descenting opinion to have less representation. It’s not like you turn on NPR or some other ‘liberal media’ and hear Carl Castle foaming at the mouth about what he can’t stand about the right, or the situation remaining at the end of republican control of the executive and legislative branches. You just tune in to get the news. Maybe there is a bias, esp. in the editorials (and I admit being guilty of refering to Daniel Shore as ‘that pompous egghead’ on occasion) but it’s not a call to arms. Air America is defunct, and I never once tuned in. AL, Janeane, go ahead and blame me, but I’m not too worried about your futures. There’s enough anger and despair in my life without getting more from the radio. Radio used to be about music and melodramas. True, comedians can get pithy in their rountines, but that’s not actual political commentary. Sadly, The Daily Show is a major source of current event update for many, but anyway…

I was listening and it suddenly struck me who else operates in this fashion - get ‘em good and riled up, make sure a faith based value system is the foundation on which you pretend to stand, constantly draw the lines between US and THEM but blur the line between ‘education’ and ‘opinion’…

Do mullahs constantly bitch about taxes too?

I really was in no hurry at all, no more than they were. I’d pretty well come to the point, the age, you might say, when a man knows he’s losing with every hour that passes. But he hasn’t yet built up the wisdom to pull up sharp on the road of time, and anyway, even if you did stop, you wouldn’t know what to do without the frenzy for going forward that has possesed you and won your admiration ever since you were young. Even now you’re not as pleased with your youth as you used to be, but you don’t yet dare admit in public that youth may be nothing more than a hurry to grow old.
In the whole of your absurd past you discover so much that’s absurd, so much deceit and credulity, that it might be a good idea to stop being young this minute, to wait for youth to break away from you and pass you by, to watch it going away, receding in the distance, to see all it’s vanity, run your hand through the empty space it has left behind, take a last look at it, and then start moving, make sure your youth has really gone, and then calmly, all by yourself, cross to the other side of Time to see what people and things really look like.

-Celine, Journey to the End of Night

MUS and I recently watched a documentary on the Weather Underground. Hardcore shit. A student organization that went totally guerilla, bombed the pentagon and capitol among other things, robbed banks to finace operations, broke Tim Leary out of prison for $20,000 paid by a collective of acid kings. US history THEY don’t really want you dwelling on - not to say the perps weren’t a bunch of freaked out kids caught up in their own self-righteousness.

The point I want to make here is how different young people today (and this is sort of a joke, as I am 5 years past ‘untrustworthy’ by the common 60’s wisdom) react to an unjust war. Youth will bitch and joke, Tivo and youtube choice bits of The Daily Show, but they aren’t about to start planting bombs and writing manifestos. True, the stakes are completely different - both in terms of govt. survellience and the new laws against dissent. Today we are more concerned with a terror war than a cold war, as manifested by the conflict in Vietnam that so effected them. But the main difference today I think is the abscence of a draft. The nuclear bomb is one thing to make young people think they are up against a wall with little to lose, but regularly learning of men in their lives - brothers, cousins, friends - dying as result of being forced to fight a resilent ‘enemy’ population on their own soil, that’ll get your back up against the wall really quick! And it’s interesting how hopelessness often lends itself to extremism: from south central LA to the Isamic world, which has one of the fastest growing under-educated, poor demographics on earth.

The global pedulum has swung back from leftist days as well. Nor are modern white American youth inspired by armed struggles of other members of the general population, such as Panthers, Natives, and prisoners. Selfishness has taken on new forms and distraction culture is ubiquitous. Lots of things were changing in those days with the social code. Lots of things are changing these days as well, but very little of it is anti-caplitalistic. Then again, the truely poor don’t have the luxury of blogging…yet.

True, there was the Battle of Seattle in ‘99 just before ‘the change’, and I used to hear about eco-terrorist action all the time out west. Once again, the rules are much different now. They took advantage of the collective fear to paint some really broad strokes. I still think Kaczynski’s manifesto will prove prophectic as we progress through the genetic revolution. I want to be clear about something: whenever you take violent action against a population in order to promote your ideals, you have gone beyond the realm of civilized human interaction and must face the music. Yes, I am also talking to you, Mr. Bush.

You think you’re a fan of a director’s work, even though you know he’s a weird one. Then you sit through 3 hours of utterly baffling footage and may not know what to think…

I remember walking out of Mullholland Drive scratching my head with a friend in Portland, but then over a beer, theories began to develop about the strangeness we’d just seen. Here, I’ve got nothing. I don’t even know if I liked it or not, I don’t know what I saw. Link to a good Lynch fansite.

Here’s a great little animated short I found through Twitch. It was made by Automatic Vaudville studios out of Montreal.



Those slimey little sound effects can really get under your skin quick. Viva animation!

Father of the midnight movie, maker of some of the strangest films you’ll ever see, Alejandro Jodorowsky is a cinematic force. Here’s a trailer from an upcoming documentary and boxed set.



I also recently got the graphic novel he wrote for illustrator Moebius mentioned by the Spainards in both podcasts #19 and #21. It’s good but not super out there as far as comics go, like a large story from Heavy Metal or the defunct Epic.