A series...

... of interesting but unrelated things.

Mark Thomas on Coke was on last night. Coca Cola, that was, of course. Coca Cola really did used to have cocaine in it apparently. On an unrelated note Coca Cola have been funding the AUC in Columbia to eliminate trade unionists. As have the banana barons at Chiquita, formerly the United Fruit Company, one-time owners and operators of the CIA. Interesting fact: the day before his death Martin Luther King called for a boycott against Coca Cola. There was a picture of a Hitler Youth activity book. Sponsored by... well, that was a long time ago. As the Daily Express headline said "Hurrah for the Blackshirts".

Robert Maxwell used to piss off the roof of his building. Onto passers by.

A little mouse with clogs on. Well I declare.

Panorama, formerly the BBC's flagship documentary series but now half-length, staffed by women and with a talking head to introduce it a la Tonight with Sir Trev. Last nights' was a full-length special, about the McCanns, but it really showed that they've discarded quality. The whole thing was based around one of the McCanns' friends having given them some behind-the-scenes footage, of the hunt and so on. It could have been a tabloid story with EXCLUSIVE written above it. They didn't even mention the government spin doctor, Mitchell is it?, and steered as far from the facts as possible.

A Usenet post:

In fact, the Nazi Party in Germany was projected into power with the women's vote. Women were the most hysterical supporters in the Nazi rallies. No surprise there. Women are hysterical. Women are even more hysterical in crowds. (Look at them at pop concerts, or watching the stars arriving for the cinema awards. And women are normally 'right wing' voters. The weakening of the Unions, the curtailment of civil liberties, the increased State interference in personal matters, and the media dumb-down - i.e. a shift to totalitarianism - have all coincided with the rise of feminism and the power of the women's vote.

A website:

In the U.S. Congress, meanwhile, it seems lately you can sell anything to the democratic leadership if it has a “security” label on it. House leader Nancy Pelosi was quoted as admitting to not knowing the content of the new plan and in the same breath implying she would support it since national security “is our highest priority.”

A secret:

Most importantly, if we do want to build a world in which killing is increasingly rare, more scientists, soldiers, and others must speak up and challenge the popular myth that human beings are “natural born killers.” Popular culture has done much to perpetuate the myth of easy killing. Indeed, today many video games are actually replicating military training and conditioning kids to kill—but without “stimulus discriminators” to ensure that they only fire under authority. Even at elite intellectual levels, the natural born killer myth is too often embraced uncritically and promoted aggressively, sometimes at the service of an ideological agenda.

We may never understand the nature of the force in humankind that causes us to strongly resist killing fellow human beings, but we can be thankful for it. And although military leaders responsible for winning a war may be distressed by this force, as a species we can view it with pride. It is there, it is strong, and it gives us cause to believe that there may just be hope for human-kind after all.

Or, as Gunnar of Hlidarendi said, "I would like to know, whether I am by so much the less brisk and bold than other men, because I think more of killing men than they?"

An item of news:

Group Plans March to Free Lauriane

Father Claims Daughter Molested, Held Political Prisoner in France

by James Ridgeway with Sandra Bisin

Supporters of a French girl believed by some to have been snared in a Nice sex ring say they'll march across New York City during a UN summit on the rights of children, slated for September 19 through 21. The girl's father, Karim Christian Kamal, will lead the demonstration, designed to get the attention of UN secretary general Kofi Annan. Last week, Kamal, a French pearl dealer, received a highly unusual granting of political asylum from a Los Angeles judge who slammed French officials for persecuting the man and his family. Kamal claimed prominent French judges and police brass trapped his daughter in a child-sex scheme and are now out to get him for exposing their pedophile racket.

It was a claim Judge Ronald N. Ohata found credible. "The French government's persecution has strong elements of personal revenge and vendetta, Mr. Kamal having complained about the corruption of the government and having been sued and persecuted following this complaint," Ohata stated. "It is pure abuse of power from individuals who are in control, and who are connected, against people who they feel are not."

The U.S. rarely grants political asylum to someone from a friendly nation. It's hard enough for people who have a well-grounded fear of repressive regimes in their home countries. France has a lengthy tradition of respect for human rights, but that hasn't been enough to stave off a public furor. The French press has gone bananas over the case, with headlines screaming "Save Lauriane."

The case itself is byzantine. During a rancorous divorce proceeding in 1993, Kamal charged that his wife, Guyot, had caused Lauriane, then five, to be abused by prominent Nice pedophiles, including judges and other local political bigwigs. The judge assigned to the case in Nice threw it out. Kamal said that was no coincidence, since he claimed the judge himself was a member of the ring.

Later, child psychologists in the U.S. examined Lauriane and reported that indeed she had been sexually abused.

Claiming the French judges were out to get him, in 1994 Kamal took the little girl and fled to California where his sister, Dalila Kamal-Griffin, an L.A. attorney, launched court actions to protect both her brother and the girl by seeking political asylum for them in the U.S.
Two months later, the plot took a twist. French officials, accompanied by two Santa Monica detectives, appeared unannounced and without warrants at Kamal's home, seized the child, and headed for the airport to take her back to France. At this point, the FBI stepped in and ordered the kid off the plane. But the French didn't give up so easily, shunting Lauriane from the U.S. to Mexico and back to France, where she lives with her mom in Nice. The French government says Kamal—who was convicted in absentia for abduction and malicious prosecution—is lying and that the daughter should have been sent home to begin with. U.S. Immigration officials agree. Guyot, the former wife, accuses Kamal of failing to pay child support and denies the pedophile charges.

For Kamal's supporters, the removal of Lauriane to France was clearly wrong. "Can you imagine for a second, what the U.S. and world reaction would have been if Elián González has been kidnapped by the Castro regime with the help of the Miami police instead of going through the courts?" asks his sister. She has founded a Web site, for the cause of missing and exploited children.

Race may also be a factor. Judge Ohata also agreed with Kamal's suspicion that he was a victim of discrimination because he is of Moroccan descent. "In this case you have a family that is being persecuted," Ohata declared, "and it is an Arab family. And it is a family that has become whistle-blowers."

From some time ago. There's not much about it on the interweb. Same goes for David Fabb Holdings, which I've mentioned before.

Again, from the Usenet, in quote form:

"Of course the men have to pay and buy you presents. Men have to spoil you. You have to be spoiled," says Mimi Valcin, 26, who works in public relations. "If you don't think you're a princess you're not going to be treated like one. You have to make sure you know -- and they know -- you're a princess. This is my feminism. It's the new feminism to say, "I'm expensive. I need lots of attention. I need men to bend over backwards for me."

-- "Material Girls Have More Fun" by Rebecca Eckler, National Post (Canada) 26 Aug 2000

And again:

[C]onsumer culture is female culture, though men do go a long way into making it possible by their work. That's sex roles, where he works so she can shop. But men are left out of the fun. He gets to shop at "The Men's Wearhouse" - akin to a large hardware store - while she has boutiques like "The Fashion Gal", "Posh", and "CJ's Creations". She gets to luxuriate; he gets to be functional. --

"Television" by The Martian Bachelor Scientist

A juxtaposition:

Here: The Hypogeum made us feel as if we were inside the womb of the Goddess. Within its walls, our tour group lost all consciousness of linear time and calendar days.

Branton: Other sources say that ABOUT 30 CHILDREN vanished in these catacombs on the study tour, and that when the "Hypogeum" was first discovered nearly 30,000 human skeletons of men, women and children (victims of ancient sacrifice to the "underworld gods", performed by an old neolithic race) were discovered as well.
One article written by a Miss Lois Jessup, at the time an employee of the British embassy and later secretary for the New York Saucer Information Bureau (better known as NYSIB), appeared in an old issue of Riley Crabb's BORDERLAND SCIENCE magazine, published by the Borderland Sciences Research Foundation (B.S.R.F.) and was later reprinted in full in Dr. Allen's book ENIGMA FANTASTIQUE. Miss Jessup claimed that she visited Malta and the Hypogeum also, once before the tragic disappearance of the children, and shortly thereafter.

A photomontage:

Jeff from rigorousintuition:

I find that really interesting, and this thread's a good example of how ideas and interests cluster together, and you often find the same people there. "Exterminating Angel," for instance, is also the title of one of my favourite Bunuel films, and so I started to think of him before I read bz's post. I also have much love for Alex Cox. Something he says sounds like it belongs on the RI board so I'll copy it here. He was offered The Three Amigos to direct but chose to make Straight to Hell instead. Asked if he regrets his choice:

Not at all. Of course, if I'd done THE THREE AMIGOS I would have earned a lot more money. But that money would be spent by now. I would have had to shoot in the United States, and not in my beloved Almeria. I would essentially have been a hired hand for some comedians from Saturday Night Live. It would not have been a good experience, for them or me. The script had these weird political overtones: it promoted the idea that Americans have the right to intervene in a violent way in foreign countries - for all that it was supposed to be a comedy, it was actually propaganda for the Monroe Doctrine. STRAIGHT TO HELL, for better or worse, is my film, and I like it very much.

I get the sense that a lot of people here have chosen their own Straight to Hell over someone else's Three Amigos, and I'm very glad to be in their company.

And from Adam Curtis:

TV now tells you what to feel.

It doesn't tell you what to think anymore. From EastEnders to reality format shows, you're on the emotional journey of people - and through the editing, it gently suggests to you what is the agreed form of feeling. "Hugs and Kisses", I call it.

I nicked that off Mark Ravenhill who wrote a very good piece which said that if you analyse television now it's a system of guidance - it tells you who is having the Bad Feelings and who is having the Good Feelings. And the person who is having the Bad Feelings is redeemed through a "hugs and kisses" moment at the end. It really is a system not of moral guidance, but of emotional guidance.

Morality has been replaced by feeling.

That's what all the disorders are about. They are a way of oppressing and measuring whether what you're feeling is the correct feeling. Intellect and morality are intimately related but feeling is now predominant.

The "feeling" provides all the moral guidance they need?

It's very difficult to take people out of themselves.

Because what you're doing is reinforcing the priority of their own feelings about themselves. The thing about our age is that everyone monitors themselves. It's really fascinating. I did this with the psychological disorders in The Trap. They've become a way of policing yourself.

"Am I the right shape? Am I the right emotional construct?"

So you edge back to the right emotional shape, or the right physical shape.

And vanity in our time - is about pleasing yourself. It's about making yourself feel better about yourself. We live within our selves. We should find a way of escaping it, but the program makers don't have the imagination or the confidence....I think that was true of marketers who saw in Freud's ideas a way of saying, "Look, we can shape how people fulfil their desires". That was also true of the neo-conservatives. They have a dark and pessimistic view of human beings, but they also have an optimistic view of a vision of the world which is that if we create a world that's grand enough, it will contain those dark desires and make them better. A lot of them are ex-Marxists, so it's not surprising.

Well, when you talk to the computer utopians and ask them, "Why are you so evangelical?" - to figure out what they really believe in - there's nothing there. What it really boils down to is a faith in inevitability, just like a Marxist view of history. It's technology, so don't fight it!

If you look at the Soviet Union the 1980s under Brezhnev were called the years of stagnation. I would argue that we are living through our own years of stagnation

I come across some interesting things. Far fewer come from me.