Sunday, November 24, 2013

The Real Point of the Redskins Name Controversy

The completely contrived "conversation" over the supposedly offensive Washington Redskins name is yet another lesson for the American citizenry and the white males who, awkwardly, still for the moment make up a great proportion of the population. That the lesson is being misrepresented by a complicit media is no surprise yet deep down the average (read: white) male sports fan knows what is really going on. For he has experienced this lesson in countless ways since childhood.

Though 79 percent of Americans have no problem whatsoever with the Redskins name, President Obama has seen fit to wade into this "issue",  lapdog media "critics" who make a comfortable living playing their role in the corrupt Washington charade present their ridiculous "solutions" and assorted fringe characters chime in on either side.

All the while the white male sports viewer grits his teeth and tries to focus on what he really cares about - the game itself. And he is well aware that this is getting harder and harder to do with each passing year.

Whether sports media behemoth ESPN is endlessly championing fringe NBA players as homosexual heroes or professional sports leagues are constantly beating the drum of Hispanic Heritage Month, Black History Month and Disabled Chipmunk Month (I may have made that last one up; then again, the NHL may indeed have celebrated that -- it's all such a blur), the white male viewer knows that these are not authentic celebrations of any individual group. He knows that the real purpose of these exercises is aimed at him.

It's the old captive audience weapon that the cultural liberal bludgeons Americans with. Liberals know they cannot win people over to their side by the merits of their arguments, for their divisive, unnatural and illogical arguments are comprehensively without merit. Thus they seek to impose their will. And since we are a supposedly free society, they must find ways to force themselves on people who have no way to simply walk away from them, i.e., the captive audience.

No American has been as beat down by this ugly stick as the white male. From an early age, he was forced to attend his parents' church and was exposed to an endless prattle of effeminate pap that he could only sit and endure, knowing he would quickly drop it all once he was old enough to make his own decisions. He was forced to attend schools where he was exposed like a lab rat to all the fashionable feminist theories of his day and told that the history of people like himself was permeated with evil. He stuck it out in pursuit of the diploma and then the degree, knowing that one day he could walk away from what he was now trapped into enduring.

Of course I know all this because I experienced it personally. One example of many: I will never forget the resentment I felt at my college freshman World Geography class that I only took to fulfill a requirement for my major curriculum. I wouldn't have even taken the class if I had my druthers, and yet, though it was a geography class, I was taught as fact (on the final exam, give the answer they want or your grade suffers) loaded lunacies such as "abortion is the oldest form of birth control in world history" and "Malthusian population control is essential for world survival." The tired bias made not a dent on me. The feeling of total exasperation at being forced to put up with this hollow propaganda - at my own rather costly expense - when all I was trying to do was satisfy a small requirement on the way to my degree sticks with me to this day. Not as something unique but as yet another of those moments that was forced on me against my will. I guess I just didn't see it coming in an introductory geography class. I guess I should have.

And then we white males became adults and saw that there were new ways designed to always keep us stuck in the captive audience. At work, we are subjected to mindless Human Resources campaigns  on diversity, workplace sensitivity and the like. That it is all so unconvincing is not the point at all. The real lesson is loud and clear: You will not be able to break away. From cradle to grave, we are going to invade your personal space and impose our worldview upon you.

Which takes us to the one diversion many white males love most: sports. All we want to do is watch the games we have loved for as long as we can remember and enjoy them. It's true that nobody is making us watch, yet as men we're hardwired to do so.

And here as well those same feelings of having something forced on us against our will resurface again and again in countless ways. Liberals really don't understand the anger white male sports fans feel at having mediocre black quarterbacks forced down our throats by the media hype machine. We want sports to be a meritocracy. We see how our modern society champions incompetence in the name of diversity and we would like to be free of this boring tyranny on the playing field, if nowhere else. It should be cut and dry: Either you can play or you can't.

Yet an endless number of "athletic" (read: black) pro quarterbacks have been foisted upon us. They have up to this point without exception been heralded as elite game changers. They have also up to this point without exception been nothing but mediocre. It's not like we're not going to notice these two things, you know. It's simply a fact of the position that pro quarterbacks who stay in the pocket and look off a DB before hitting a receiver or check off to their second or third receiving option are more successful than "athletic" (read: black) quarterbacks who run when their first receiving option is not open, even when a wide-open receiver is streaking towards the goal line. It is also more entertaining to watch a QB find the third receiver and thread a pass to him to move the team down the field than it is to watch an "athlete" take the snap, dart around end and run, run, run.

The notion that wanting to see the pro quarterback position played at its highest level is a sign of racism is beyond ludicrous. We are talking about the same fans here who accept and rabidly cheer on an NFL that is 70 percent black on the field and an NBA that is 80 percent black on the hardcourt. We don't want Vince Young quarterbacking a team for the same reason that we don't want Adam Morrison in an NBA starting lineup.

The disgruntlement with the nonstop media hype of black quarterbacks is really a sign of white male fans resenting the feeling that they are being played again, just as they have been played over and over again in all other aspects of their lives.

And that is what this fake Redskins name controversy is really all about. The fact that we are a captive audience is being driven home one more time. The liberal is imposing his perspective yet again. He's bought the games - he televises them, he owns the teams, he runs the leagues. If you want to watch, sit in your seat, absorb the propaganda and acquiesce as they take something else away from you.

Just like you once did in church. Just like you once did in school. Just like you do now at work.

The liberal is spelling it out: There is no private space for you, white American male. We will come into the things you love and turn them on you.

It comes with losing a cultural war.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Fun and Cool Songs About Death and Dying

1.  Lee Hazlewood - We All Make the Flowers Grow

Outstanding youtube video put together here for this song. Excellent use of worldly 1960s-era footage highlights the fact that what is all around us will one day disappear, along with... us.

"Wise men and fools, two will get you five. You'll never get out of this world alive."




2. Daniel Johnston - Funeral Home

The nervous laughter of his audience really adds to the wallop.

"I'm goin' to the funeral and I'm never coming back."




3. Quasi - My Coffin

Morbid despair with a crisp sense of humor and a fine pride in craftsmanship.

"I'm beveling the edges to make it nice and strong."





4. Wreckless Eric - Final Taxi

The English working class vocal delivery is somehow incredibly fitting to the subject at hand.

"There's only one destination in the final taxi."





And, finally, my favorite "Screw Death, You Ruthless Bastard" song...


5. Eels - The Medication Is Wearing Off

Pain is a part of life. A touching witness to the hurt that comes with being left behind.

"See this watch she gave me? Well it still ticks away."





Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Two Faces of Conditioning

They proved that this could be turned into that in the minds of millions of Americans in the blink of an eye merely to sell more of a product that kills its consumers. Doesn't matter. Content simply does not matter. Image is everything.

If they could so deftly shape masculine and feminine expression in the name of a duplicitous and deadly commerce why couldn't they also have the ability to reshape these things to suit a revolutionary aim to destroy a cohesive society?

If we could stop seeing these issues as liberal vs. conservative and red state vs. blue state and instead see the manipulation as the blatant and cheap marketing scam that it is, perhaps we can save this culture.


Predatory capitalism and Marxist collectivism: Two sides of the same tyrannical materialist coin.

Our demise as a free people has literally been sold to us like Coca-Cola.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Elect to Use Your Brain

What makes me laugh every time one of these things comes around - every 2 to 4 years of course being THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVER - is all those folks out there who mock their fellow citizens who pay too much attention to Dancing With the Stars or sports or whatever other meaningless distractions they are so wrapped up in and "don't care enough about their country to take the time to vote."

Please pay attention, because I'm only gonna say this once:

The election IS the distraction.

The political circus is the curtain cast over the economic construct that is hammering us all into indentured slavery.

95 percent of the politicians are owned outright by this economic construct. The other 5 percent are useful idiots because they make the charade all the more believable. They will never have the power to effect meaningful change inside a fixed game and so they go to Washington and learn how to "work within the system." And then they slowly become part of the other 95 percent.

If you want to effect real change in this nation, stop buying things from large multinational corporations. Get your money out of big banks. Don't go to movies or sporting events. Get rid of cable. Boycott Disney.

Stop feeding the tyranny. Stop buying into the illusion of choice.

It will be difficult and you won't always be 100 percent pure but that is the only way to really do something. To the best of your ability, remove yourself from the rotted construct.

Or you can vote. And continue to be part of the problem while getting to lecture all the rest of us about how you are part of the solution.

You get to feel good about yourself. And, hey, isn't that the most important thing in America today?

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

The Mainstream Media Hate White Folks With Guns

This is actually reported as a straight news item in a major metropolitan newspaper...

Specifically, for each 1 point increase in symbolic racism (on a scale from one to five), there was a 50% greater chance of having a gun in the home and a 28% increase in the odds of supporting permits to carry concealed handguns.
The authors describe symbolic racism as a belief structure underpinned by an anti-black feeling established in younger years through exposure to negative stereotypes such as "blacks are dangerous."

Give it a second, it gets even more ridiculous:

"This anti-black affect is not necessarily conscious or deliberate but may be felt as fear, anger, unease and hostility towards blacks," according to the researchers.
"The symbolic component reflects the abstract view of blacks as a collective rather than as individuals, as well as its basis in abstract white moralistic reasoning and traditions," the authors state.

The extremely thin veneer of scientific research presented in this "study" would of course be immediately shattered by the most casual examination of U.S. crime rate demographics. Yet the reader is hilariously led to believe that rabid, armed white Americans are a menacing danger to blacks. This sort of BS was able to fly in the days of three television channels plus PBS and your daily local newspaper plus Time Magazine. The real truth of the matter is easy to find in the age of the Internet.

Australians want to disarm white Americans. One could care less what they think. But a major American mainstream newspaper sees fit to pass on their ravings as hard news. And "journalists" wonder why nobody takes them seriously anymore.

Friday, November 1, 2013

While We Are Mourning Lou Reed

I mean to take nothing away from those who are currently acknowledging the enormous talent and huge influence that the late Lou Reed had on the rock and roll landscape, most essentially with the Velvet Underground. However, this might be a good time to give some public recognition to another man who richly deserves your acclaim and then some.

So many Reed tributes have referenced his iconic song "Walk on the Wild Side" that it would be pointless to list just a few here. A recent Google News search came up with 64,800 hits for that song in the wake of Reed's death.

And with good reason. The song has a unique sound that is both perfect for its era - the bleak, tired, post-Flower Child early 1970s - and timeless at the same time. The sleepy sax, the signature "Do da do da do" "colored girls" backup vocals and Reed's own restrained narrative delivery make up for the sleazy, limiting lyrics about a particularly seamy underbelly of New York City.

But above all what makes the song truly great is its core feature - the brilliant bass lines of a man by the name of Herbie Flowers.

Flowers was one of those legions of incredibly talented sessions players that were ubiquitous in the music business in the '60s and '70s. I can give my own rather limited description of the role Flowers played in music of the time and his crucial contribution to this iconic song but this short video clip says it all:



Watch Flowers explain how he wrapped an upright bass around a bass guitar to achieve the evocative double tone captured in the tune. It's quite riveting, actually. A historical musical moment unfolds right before your eyes.

What really makes Flowers special in my mind is not the fact that once upon a time he came up with one of the very best bass lines in rock and roll history. Actually, he did it TWICE.

Harry Nilsson's 1971 album "Nilsson Schmilsson" contains the classic track "Jump into the Fire." It's kind of sad that since 1990 it's been known as "the helicopter song in Goodfellas" because it deserves to stand on its own as one hell of a killer tune.

And once again, Flowers' bass work is front and center. It goes without saying (just listen) that he is the heart and soul of the entire song right from the very beginning. But that beginning is truly legendary. Flowers' bass is the musical equivalent of bouncing a Superball off the concrete floor of your childhood home's cold, wood-paneled basement on a hot 1970s air conditioner-less summer day. And yet it sounds every bit as fresh and exciting today. A unique sound for its era AND timelessness - Herbie strikes again!

When we get to the 3:57 mark and the tragic Jim Gordon's drum solo the sheer skill of the session player is on full display. Flowers' bass jam joins him at 4:43 and the results are intoxicating.

This is music with professional acumen AND a human touch. This is rock and roll artistry.

So while you mourn the passing of Lou Reed take a second to appreciate that his most famous moment would never have happened without the sublime talents of a session player by the name of Herbie Flowers.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Honesty Simply Does Not Matter to the Emotional Cultural Liberal

I've been patiently waiting for an update on the infamous Boy With the Pink Headband at Walmart story, which went viral way, way back in August, knowing full well that of course it would be completely and universally ignored by the full-hype, short-attention-span media in a quite impressive way. And so we all just move on to the next outrageous lie.

The mother involved has now returned to the Internet after a two-month hiatus. The ramblings in her post on this affair are not interesting at all, but the comments are really something. By now most people realize this woman is clearly disturbed, yet the full logic of emotional modern American females (and effeminate men) is on vibrant display here.

This has always been the thing about cultural liberalism that has terrified me the most. Emotion trumps veracity. Hope and pray that you never get caught up in a showdown between these two things with a cultural liberal. Because he WILL put you in prison if it comes to it rather than have to come to terms with the fact that his "feelings" aren't real. 

It's a grave danger to personal freedom and to the basic decency that comes with a genuine and honest society.

So, without further ado, here are a few choice nuggets of emotional tyranny gleaned from the reader comments to this unfortunate woman's latest self-justifying post:


1. If we only knew YOU, we would mindlessly accept your ridiculous story.

It sucks to know that people think you’re a liar, but those people don’t know YOU. However, there are many who do, and they would never believe that of you. Those are the people who are truly important. Focus on them. Hugs and healing energy to all of you!


2. If we use terms like "ignorant fool" we get to claim the moral and intellectual high ground despite the total irrationality of our position.

Oh Katie, I am so very sorry that you and your family have had to be subjected to such a disgusting side of the human race! I am afraid that as the proud mother of an openly homosexual child, I would have gone completely ballistic on that ignorant fool. 


3. We don't have logic, reason or basic facts on our side yet we don't even owe an explanation because everybody else is stupid:

I didn’t know about your blog until I saw your story on Huff post, but as a new father myself who puts his only son before all else and adoring my son’s uniqueness, I want to protect him from all the miserable souls out there whom can even fathom ill will. I will do my best of course, but I highly doubt I will be able to protect him from what seems to be a growing faction in America, stupidity… I guess all I really want to say is…I am a new fan of our blog and will be reading regularly….your A-Ok in my book and again, you have nothing to be ashamed of or even need to explain….


4. It doesn't matter that you intentionally made up a bunch of BS and went public with it on a very prominent website in an attempt to garner as much attention as possible... you are the victim here:

I think it is disgusting the way that people, who do not even know you, have treated you – and for what reason do they really give? Even if you were lying (which I don’t think you were) it is still no excuse. Things have to change – people have to stop being able to troll like this and not be prosecuted.



5. It's our unfair society's fault that you were criticized more heavily for being such a blatant liar than the fictitious character you made up was for his reprehensible fictitious deed:

You know, I find myself rather disliking society as it is. I’ve pointed to you several times indicating that you were stoned, made an outcast from society, for “lying on the internet” (common consensus only).
Regardless of the veracity of the incident, there have been a plethora of people who “lie on the internet,” why do they feel they need to single you out for that innocuous crime and issue a stronger punishment than we would for the man in the incident?


6. Default terminology yet again: Everybody who doesn't live in the imaginary cultural liberal world is STUPID:

Wow, my mind is simply blown. I knew that people were disgusting, but this is an ultimate low. I can’t even comprehend what all you have experienced through this and I am so sorry!It breaks my heart that people are so nasty and cruel, and to be frank, STUPID. 

Monday, October 21, 2013

Atheist Jargon In Your Local Newspaper

The mainstream newspapers are not even worried about blowback anymore. They just assume that they have so thoroughly won the culture war that they don't even have to hide the condescending loathing for the formerly dominant Christian religion:

Bishop Gerald Dino led the prayers and dedication, asking for their deity to “bless and sanctify this house.” He led a procession through the building, blessing each classroom, before going on the balcony and blessing the parish and the congregation.

"Their deity." Mythical-Place-of-Eternal-Happiness forbid the Las Vegas Review-Journal uses the word "God" to describe the focus of Catholic prayers. 

Just another small hint of what the traditional Christian American should by now be very well aware of: These people are opposed to your very existence. They despise what you hold sacred and they do not see fit to offer even the tiniest sliver of respect for the things you cherish.

It's another milestone on the "tolerance" highway. Last stop: outright hostility. As this milemarker shows, we are getting closer and closer to reaching our destination.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Lack of Individuality Increases Corporate Profits in Our Bankrupt Cultural Milieu

The USA Network had a show in the amazing early days of cable called Night Flight that was a potpourri of rock and roll, B-movies and other assorted oddities. As part of its programming, it ran a Los Angeles local cable show called New Wave Theater that was dedicated to the growing independent music scene in L.A. in the early 1980s.

The host, Peter Ivers, was best friends with the creator of Animal House and stars like John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. He was murdered in 1983 and the case was never solved, although the director of New Wave Theater is apparently a top suspect:

Although the mystery of Ivers’ death isn't solved as such his NWT partner David Jove is fingered as far and away the most likely suspect for his murder. The most startling aspect of this is the revelation that the ”megalomaniac bully” David Jove was also apparently David Schneiderman aka "The Acid King", a character who features prominently in British 60s counter-culture chronicles as the shadowy figure who infamously supplied the drugs at the Redlands bust and then conveniently disappeared when Jagger and Richards were arrested, amid dark suggestions later on that the whole thing was a set-up engineered by Schneiderman/Jove.

This episode of New Wave Theater was made in the wake of his murder. Interesting to think that his murderer may have made the show.

While there is a ghoulish fascination with this particular episode, what is more intriguing is getting to watch a show with such individual character from back in the day after scrolling through all the scripted "reality" crap on TV today that is totally devoid of real personality, real people and real opinions.

It's simply amazing how corporations have literally banned individual identity from our television sets because they see it as a barrier to increased profits.

And yes, if you watch the Honda Scooters ad featuring an absurdly young Adam Ant being devoured by Grace Jones at the 12:06 mark of the youtube video you can see the corporate behemoth taking aim at the New Wavers.

But of course this is in perfect keeping with the cycle of artistry in modern capitalist America:

First, something is good and makes no money. Then it is good and makes a bit of money. Then it is making money but still sort of good. Then it is making big money and who cares if it's any good. Then it's about making as much money as possible and it totally sucks.

Which makes the following video from 1977 even more interesting:






A couple of points:

a. In attacking the burgeoning punk rock fad, I love how aging promoter Bill Graham immediately throws the Nazi card at something he personally isn't profiting from (6:04 mark). He comes across as a guy who made a ton of loot in the '60s and can't figure out how to keep the money train rolling in the post-Watergate '70s. He really has nothing to offer to the conversation at all but he's there because he wants to co-opt something he doesn't remotely understand.

b. You can see that Kim Fowley is every bit as business oriented as Graham yet truly understands what is happening. His dismissal of punk rock at the 8:48 mark as self-limiting and trendy was dead-on. You can tell Fowley, back in 1977, can clearly foresee the rise of bands like New Order and the whole "college rock" or "alternative rock" movement of the 1980s: smart, melodic and power-catchy music. Sharp eye, Mr. Fowley.

This is in theory how capitalism is meant to operate. The street-smart guy with his pulse on what is really happening getting ahead of the curve and profiting from his knowledge. One can see how this would benefit and boost cultural innovation. Alas, in terms of culture today, it is clear that this playing field no longer exists in even the slightest way.

Giant corporations dominate our television networks, our movie makers and our music companies. Giant corporations do not look to nurture and develop the next big thing. They are not seriously trying to get ahead of the curve. Rather, they look to co-opt and profit off of whatever they can for as long as they can.

Our cycle of artistry is stuck in endgame overdrive. The main goal is to find something that will make as much money as possible without any concern for quality whatsoever.

Our cultural decision-makers today are all aging Bill Grahams trying to hold onto their moneymakers. The savvy Kim Fowleys are prevented from nurturing something new and the result is the American public is fed a tasteless gruel of safe, dull and predictable fare. That it is increasingly sexually explicit and scatological only reinforces the artistic bankruptcy of it all.

"Show me an artist and forget the trend," Kim Fowley says, quoting legendary music executive Clive Davis.

We have no artists today for our corporate cultural oligarchs are only interested in maximizing the trend.

It is a grave, grave loss for us all.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Feminism Ain't Rebellion... Lady, You're Drinking What They're Selling

Here's another distasteful (pun intended) slice of evidence of the corporate promotion of "women's liberation" during its formative years. The oversized companies that profit from selling cheap, nutritionally-worthless "food" were openly encouraging and promoting working mothers back in 1981, just as they were really starting to hit the mainstream.

Why?

It certainly had nothing to do with "fulfilling" women.

It had everything to do with increasing profits.

The makers of this horrific dreck (Ever try one? Like eating a tennis ball covered in ketchup. LOTS and LOTS of ketchup.) were willing to destroy an entire nation's future health just to increase their 1981 sales.... and they did.




This ad aired one year after the makers of Steakumm were bought out by food processing giant Heinz. Heinz paid handsomely for the Steakumm brand and wasted no time in honing in on the perfect target for its junk product... the emerging majority ("over 50 percent") of working women, many of them mothers.

Not surprisingly, this rubbery, processed meatbrick is still made today. And was the subject of recent controversy:

[I]n a trademark-infringement suit [in 2012] that pitted Steak-umms owners against a South Philly cheesesteak and pizza shop named Steak 'Em Up, the ugly truth of the mass-produced sandwich steak was revealed. And the details are pretty bleak.  
In courtroom proceedings, the composition of the meat came to light. The [Philadelphia] Daily News reports that the stuff is:
[C]hopped and formed emulsified meat product that is comprised of beef trimmings left over after an animal is slaughtered and all of the primary cuts, such as tenderloin, filet, and rib eye, are removed ... The emulsified meat is pressed into a loaf and sliced, frozen and packaged.
Yum!

Amoral capitalism truly is every bit as evil as communism.

One look at the health profile of the typical American adult today, most of whom were raised on fake corporate garbage such as this, should be all that is needed to drive that message home. Processed foods have wreaked havoc on the vitality of this nation's citizenry.

Any honest appraisal of the modern feminist movement must conclude that its most meaningful "achievement" by far was cementing the dominance of toxic corporate food items in the American kitchen.

Here's one feminist smart (or honest?) enough to put 2 and 2 together yet still unwilling to admit what she in fact knows... that it adds up to 4:

So here’s the conundrum. Processed foods are bad for us. But there’s also something that seems, well, liberating about them . Easy-to-prepare processed foods free up some serious time on the domestic front. And less time in the kitchen means more time for people—and especially women, who still do most of the cooking—to accomplish other things in their lives.
So are processed foods feminist?
I am certainly unwilling to answer yes to this question in an unequivocal way. Processed foods weren’t created for the purpose of liberating women from their stifling domestic duties. They were created by corporations for the purpose of making money—and those same corporations certainly didn’t want the lucrative market of homemakers to leave the domestic front. But nonetheless, processed foods have contributed to the liberation of women from compulsory domestic duties.

Large, exploitative companies like Heinz knew over 30 years ago that stay-at-home mothers from intact families who have time to cook real meals were bad for their mass-produced business. They happen to be great for the nutritional health of the children they raise, but that doesn't up the stock price for MegaFood, Inc., does it?

Ah, to hell with the kids, Heinz had 1981 revenue projections to meet.

We are all paying the price now.

Oh, and... using little Ralphie from "A Christmas Story" as a pawn in their evil game? That really hurts.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

How a New England City Became Mogadishu On the Connecticut River

Just caught a summer repeat of this 60 Minutes feature on a Massachusetts state cop and Iraq war veteran's "brilliant" idea to police the city of Springfield just as his military unit policed hostile cities in occupied Iraq:




Our intrepid CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl breathlessly reported this wonderful new police enforcement concept in a manner that unflinchingly portrayed the police as white knights coming to the rescue. There is brief mention made of concerns about using military tactics in domestic policing but the oversized elephant in the room is never mentioned: We have gotten to the point now where an American city is being treated in the same way that our military treats foreign-occupied territory. The gangs and other associated criminals in the story were compared to Iraqi insurgents but the sad reality of what causes police officers to go into the third-largest city in the state of Massachusetts with the same wariness and tactical concerns that an army unit has when entering a war-torn foreign village was never touched upon.

The state cop who came up with the Counterinsurgency-in-Mayberry plan openly compares Springfield to Mogadishu and Kandahar City, yet of course there will never be a real effort by CBS to explain just how an American city that is located over 2,000 miles from the Mexican border had become so overrun by hostiles forces.

This did not just happen overnight. It was the result of a deliberate attempt to destabilize and balkanize a cohesive nation of citizens bound by a common culture through neighborhood breaking and massive non-European immigration.

I personally witnessed a key moment in the destruction of Springfield, Massachusetts. You see, I lived there for a time as a small child, from 1972-75, and have vivid memories of the takeover of the working-class Irish neighborhood where we resided.

It all started with a wave of Puerto Rican immigrants into the city in the late '60s and early '70s who arrived in the immediate wake of Ted Kennedy's disastrous Immigration Act of 1965, which specifically mandated a national preference for Third World immigrants instead of the more assimilable Europeans in our immigration policy. This undoubtedly created an encouraging environment for the massive and nonstop influx of Puerto Ricans, whose rights to move to continental America were of course not dependent on the 1965 law, into cities such as Springfield:

Hartford, Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts have both a large Puerto Rican population and an extremely high proportion of Puerto Rican among the Hispanics, making these metro areas valuable for study of the distinctive impact of Puerto Rican presence. Between 1990 and 2000, non-Hispanic Whites in these metropolitan areas were moving away from towns and cities where Hispanics were concentrated and growing. Such population separation may in part be attributable to the relatively high-poverty level among Hispanics. Multivariate analysis applied to data for 38 metro areas with varying levels of Puerto Rican predominance among Hispanics shows, however, that ethnic group segregation was influenced by Puerto Rican presence even when controlling for the economic status of Hispanics. The “Puerto Rican effect” may stem from the greater racialization of Puerto Ricans. By contrast other Hispanic groups may have benefitted from an immigrant identity that has now become more of a liability.

Even as a 6-year-old, I could see the effect this had on one neighborhood in Springfield. The Hungry Hill section was a longstanding Irish enclave. We lived on the bottom of the hill on our street, with old Mrs. Shea next door and a childhood friend whose last name was Murphy all the way at the top. Every day my brother, sister and I would run up the hill to play with our pal, whose dad was a Springfield cop.

Like so many white families in the face of the Puerto Rican invasion, we moved out to the suburbs as soon as we could. Our parents saw which way the wind was blowing. But we came back to visit our friend only a year or two later and I recall him pointing out the houses on the street that we had run past so many times on our way up and down the hill. "Oh, that one's a drug dealer. Oh, the cops raided that place the other day." Etc. etc. Our childhood friend was all of 8 years old as he gave us this rundown. My memory of my reaction to that experience was hoping the Murphy family would be able to escape too before it was too late.

That it was all an intentional effort to destroy white city neighborhoods surely escaped our young minds at the time. But the evidence is out there today for those who care to look back, and massive immigration was not the only weapon used.

"The Six-District Plan - Integration of The Springfield, Mass. Elementary Schools," an official 1976 report from the Massachusetts Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, spotlights the use of busing as one way to destroy the old neighborhoods. This whole paper reads like a Soviet plan to transfer native Ukrainians to Siberia and replace them with some bizarre minority from the steppes of Asia.

The strong-arm tactics and eager desire to use force are not even disguised. Homogenous neighborhoods are seen as a threat. All local concerns are dismissed out of hand.

This quote on the top of page 24 from Dr. John E. Deady, Springfield's superintendent of schools, is downright Orwellian:

"I sympathize with the man who wants his neighborhood school. However, I believe that the majority must sacrifice that neighborhood school in order to create the integrated society which in the long run will benefit us all. In Springfield, busing became unavoidable."

Also note how the churches, with the Catholic archdiocese squarely at the fore, enthusiastically volunteered to help force The Plan down residents' throats (page 34):

At the request of the council of churches and the Catholic Diocese, many ministers of all denominations and priests talked about the Six-District Plan and the importance of integration from the pulpit the Sunday before the opening of school and urged their parishioners to obey the law.

People see the pedophilia scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in recent decades and think that is the only damage these treacherous shepherds were inflicting on their naive flocks at the time. Little mentioned is how these same corrupt clerics were actively conspiring in the destruction of their very own parishes.

I vividly recall the Catholic education I received in the 1970s and '80s, first in the suburbs and then back in Springfield itself for high school. The Catholic duty to support open and widespread Third World immigration was constantly pushed on us from an early age, along with the usual wooden and overblown Civil Rights movement badgerings that portrayed white males as the great evil of the 20th century.

Even as kids and early teens, one could sense that we were being manipulated. I remember our class being forced to watch a pro-Sanctuary Movement PBS propaganda film that featured a memorable scene where two brown-skinned kids trying to sneak into America are attacked in a sewage tunnel by a pack of rats:

101:45 mark:




We were supposed to be horrified by this and confused and angry at our government for making poor unfortunates like this have to undergo such trauma when they were only trying to improve their lives. But kids know better. Kids have an inherent sense of right and wrong that they don't need to learn from their elders. When a group of kids is playing with the ball you brought along and somebody runs off with your ball and won't give it back, you don't need an adult to tell you you've been wronged. And that is how I remember feeling watching that scene. Remembering that Irish neighborhood that had literally gone to Hell, the instinctive response I had to this scene was that these people were trying to take something that was mine. I didn't need to have a political orientation to instinctively see the rats as a last line of defense and cheer them on as they attempted to thwart the intruders who were trying to take something away from me. Sounds cruel, and as an adult I wouldn't be as immature and callous, but it was a basic honesty that comes with childhood that told me that I was being played here by those who were trying to use my own emotions against me. They were trying to brainwash me against my own home and hearth, and I wasn't buying it. Go Rats!

Six-district plans, bald-faced propaganda at parochial school and at Sunday Mass, what did it all lead to? The conclusion could not be more pronounced yet nobody seems to want to tot up the score and mark accounts. It is an unavoidable fact that the result of all that pious preening and white guilt trips is a smaller Detroit on the Connecticut River... an uninhabitable, crumbling ghetto of a city marked by violence, racial strife and squalor to such an extent that the police openly regard it as another Mogadishu or Kandahar City.

The non-assimilable immigration, the forced "integration" of the neighborhood schools... the whole effort is a total and complete failure if you accept the notion that these 1970s multicultural progressives were really attempting to do good. Of course, that is not what they were attempting to do at all.

The common threads have been broken. Neighborhoods have been destroyed. The once-dominant citizenry is rootless and isolated. And the era of progressive collectivism on a total scale is one giant step closer.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Bob Crane and the Color Orange




I believe that at its heart "Auto Focus", the 2002 Paul Schrader film on the murder of "Hogan's Heroes" star Bob Crane, is a very Catholic film. If you can separate the gratuitous nudity and strong sexual content from the overall story what you get is a devastatingly spot-on morality tale about the dangers of casually drifting into a life of error, or, as Catholics would call it, sin.

Crane, played remarkably well by Greg Kinnear, is above all a nice guy. Early in the film he winningly chirps, "Eddie Cantor once told me likeability is 90 percent of the battle. And we was right!"

Note he is not talking about being a good guy. He is talking about being a likeable guy. Big difference.

Crane's "likeability" opened the door to temptation as he slowly but surely threw himself into the near occasion of sin. "Auto Focus" unflinchingly documents this process and its consequences.

It's a fine film and I recommend it highly to those who can get past the sexual vulgarity. This description seems particularly spot-on:

This is a remarkable, delicate and disturbing film.
With its depictions of 60's and 70's lifestyles and
fashions and its brilliantly disquieting atmospheric
shift between the decades, the film is unquestionably
one of the most well thought-out period pieces to be
seen. But this is just the brilliant visuals of the
film. They underscore a far more interesting and
darkened theme. As an essay on man's descent into his
own personal hell of sexual addiction and societal
abnormality, "Auto Focus" perhaps stands alone. There
is a layer here, a seemingly nearly translucent one,
that is peeled back to expose something that lurks not
deep within us, but just beneath the polite exteriors
of our public personas. Given fame and money and a
partner in crime, Bob Crane wallows in his addiction
to sex, pornography and women.

The way the director contrasts the bright polyester leisure suit decor with the tired, dirty soul of America in the 1970s is nothing short of brilliant. The last half-hour is a visceral descent into personal darkness as revealed by the main character himself and the scenery that surrounds him.

As Crane is enveloped in this secular squalor, he seems to dwell on where he's ended up and how he got there. And he makes a rather cryptic statement about the meaning of the word orange.

This has always struck me as a comment of some importance.

As this interview with director Schrader reveals, the dialogue did in fact come from the real Bob Crane himself:

There’s a very interesting conversation that Crane has with his son towards the end about the word “orange.”
That came from Bob Jr., who overheard his father having that conversation with another man late into his life, when [he] didn’t quite understand what had happened. But Bob Jr. took it to mean that his father was at a point where he was trying to figure out some real basic sorts of things. That things had hidden meanings. So I used it there.

Here's the quote from the film:

The color orange. But what is it, really?
The color?
Yeah. But that's it. Just tell me, what is orange?
I don't know.
That's my point. You take it for granted. You don't think about stuff like that.


I believe I understand what Crane was getting at, and I'll tell you why.

Let's start by referring to one of my favorite scenes in literary fiction. It is from Walker Percy's 1977 novel "Lancelot". The book is set in corruption-plagued Louisiana and at one point Percy gives the best description of the very moment a childhood ends that I've ever read:

I can only compare it to the time I discovered my father was a crook. It was a long time ago. I was a child. My mother was going shopping and had sent me up to swipe some of his pocket money from his sock drawer. For a couple of years he had had a political appointment with the insurance commission with a "reform" administration. He had been accused of being in charge of parceling out the state's insurance business and taking kickbacks from local agencies. Of course we knew that could not be true. We were an honorable family. We had nothing to do with the Longs. We may have lost our money, Belle Isle was half in ruins, but we were an honorable family with an honorable name. Much talk of dirty politics. The honor of the family won out and even the opposition gave up. So I opened up the sock drawer and found not ten dollars but ten thousand dollars stuck carelessly under some argyle socks.
[. . .]
At the sight of the money, a new world opened up for me. The old world fell  to pieces - not necessarily a bad thing. Ah, then, things are not so nice, I said to myself. But you see, that was an important discovery. For if there is one thing harder to bear than dishonor, it is honor, being brought up in a family where everything is so nice, perfect in fact, except of course oneself.

OK, so his dad was a crook and most of us can't relate to that, but what a riveting way to describe that moment in a child's life when he leaves one world and enters another. I remember my Ah! moment myself and I can still feel today how total the change in my perception was. It was the first out-of-the-norm bad thing to happen in our family, something all children unavoidably experience one way or the other, be it through the death of a relative or whatever. I distinctly recall feeling before the traumatic event that the world was specifically created just for me. Grass was green just so I could run through the green grass. The branches of the trees in our backyard were shaped as they were just so I could climb them. And so on. And then this thing happened. And in an instant the feeling that the world was made just for me and my personal enjoyment was gone, never to return. I didn't lose anything real or tangible, rather I lost an illusion. A pleasant, innocent illusion to be sure, but one I had to lose eventually.

Now imagine losing your world as an adult. Not just an illusion, but your very world itself.

Which brings us back to Bob Crane. Locked into a personal prison of sexual excess and compulsion, I believe Crane had an adult Ah! moment and it is reflected in his thoughts on the word "orange." Just as small children have a strong sense of the proper order of things, so too does a man. And here is a man who found himself so trapped in error that he had seen everything in his life fall out of place. He wants his world to have the natural order we all take for granted with the word "orange". His loss is no illusion. It's tangible. It's real. And it is caused by his own actions.

This is what sin does to us. When we sin things fall out of place. If we seek repentance and vow to amend our ways, we can restore our world and its natural sense of order once again.

But the incorrigble sinner will discover to his horror that after a while his whole world will spiral away from him. I recall times when my friends and I would hear about the perpetrator of some particularly heinous crime - a child molester, rapist, murderer, etc. - and wonder how he could do it. Not the crime itself, as we all know that human beings are capable of the most depraved behavior imaginable. No, what we wondered was how he could wake up the next day and tie his shoes, comb his hair, brush his teeth. You know... how could he do all those normal little things that regular folks do every day?

Well, Bob Crane answered that question. He can't. Not like he did before. The same applies to any kind of persistent grave sinner. The man who becomes consumed by his sins finds his world so knocked off its axis that he loses the simple certainty in life that can be found in the word "orange." You can't just take such things in life for granted. They don't just fall into place. That's all gone.

This is how completely destructive unrepentant serious sin is to a human life. This is how fully it warps the sinner's very existence. This is how utterly lost the man steeped in sin is.

Orange.

It's really a very profound and quite shattering observation.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Unheralded Catholic Moments in Film

Got a new article published on the Crisis Magazine website this week. As it shows, it's summertime and I've got movies on my mind. So without further ado, here are a few moments from films that richly embody Catholic values. These are not the usual suspects, i.e., "A Man For All Seasons," "The Song of Bernadette", etc. but either films that sadly lack the attention they deserve or are not the kind of movies you would expect to appear on a list like this. So here we go:

1. The Hustler - Brick-laying Can Be Great If a Guy Knows

A shining moment in a wonderful film, Eddie Felson's description of how his pool skills felt to him when he was really on is a brilliant exposition on appreciating the talents God gives us. Sure, it was just shooting pool, but Felson, memorably played by Paul Newman, reveals in this scene grateful enjoyment of his talent for what it is, not just for what it can do for him or what he can get from it. Doing something and doing it well can truly be its own reward. How far removed we are these days from such sentiments. Imagine how much better the world would be today if employers and employees alike held such a proper and respectful regard for the talents human beings have to offer.

Unfortunately, could not find a video clip but the dialogue can be found here.


2. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Heaven Forgive Me

Oscar Wilde's classic novel made for an outstanding 1945 Catholic film, starring Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders and Donna Reed. The innocence of young Gray is corrupted by an idle lord, played unforgettably by Sanders, and the grisly end of the film reveals the results of his terrible influence on the younger man. The true horror and repentance evidenced by the carelessly scandalous character makes for a powerful display of the grave danger to be found in casual words and example.

Spoiler alert: If you haven't seen the movie, don't watch this:




3. Ballad of a Soldier - Entire Film

I've always been a fan of war films from earliest childhood and, going back as far as I can remember, I always hoped to see a representation of the true cost of war, of all that untapped potential of all those young lives extinguished before they could really make their mark on the world. It is the essence of Catholicism to prize the individual human being, and the carnage of modern warfare is the most brutally obvious way in which our industrialized world fails to cherish this prize. I always wanted to see that portrayed on film in an honest, non-cloying way. So it shocked me beyond words to discover that such a movie was out there all along, and that it was made in all places in the Soviet Union. This film has such a beautiful soul and gives such a vivid picture of the potential and promise of one young soldier that it is simply amazing that it came out of the same country that literally forced young unarmed conscripts to link arms and charge German machine guns in open field during World War II.

Surely one of the best war films of all time, and one of the most human, and therefore Catholic, in its celebration of individual life, the entire film can be viewed here.


4. Anne of The Thousand Days - I Shall Be Excommunicated

The fact that this film did not become as popular as the equally outstanding "A Man For All Seasons" can be entirely explained by the social changes that overcame (read: destroyed) The West in the 1960s. When "A Man For All Seasons" won multiple Oscars for 1966 there was still an appreciation for traditional theatrical productions. By the 1969 Awards, the edgy, rebel (read: scum) "new" filmmakers were in vogue, and Hollywood laughably made "Midnight Cowboy" the best film of the year ahead of "Anne of the Thousand Days." Just try to watch the horribly dated and flat-out awful "Midnight Cowboy" today; the word "excrement" does not even begin to describe it. Meanwhile, the far superior and lasting film snuck under the radar as the years went by. A great pity, for this film crackles with witty dialogue and strong acting performances, from Richard Burton in the lead to John Colicos as a better Cromwell than the worthy Leo McKern was in "A Man For All Seasons" to Anthony Quayle as a far superior Wolsey than the bloated Orson Welles in "AMFAS". Burton's speech in which Henry VIII truly contemplates the consequences of his move to split from Rome is an all-time classic Catholic moment in film, one that is tragically overlooked today because of the whims of a trend-chasing Hollywood in the late '60s.

Find the film if you can, but you can view an actually quite excellent homage to this gem of a scene here.


5. Ferris Beuller's Day Off - A Man With Priorities So Out of Whack

OK, here's a lighter one for you, but I find this to be one of the best quotes to describe Protestants and the materialistic culture they have inflicted on us today. Saw a bit of this movie the other day. LOVE this scene. What makes it is he's stroking and admiring the car as he delivers that perfect line.

Theologically, one of the all-time great Catholic lines in cinematic history! No joke.

That's the worst thing about it: Protestants (and far too many Catholics today) admire material things to such an extent that they don't even understand the actual purpose of the things themselves and thus they end up ruining these very things that they inordinately love. Unfortunately, they ruin it for us all in the process as well because their actions DO have a profound effect on our society.

A clip can be heard here.


*Bonus picks:

6. Auto Focus - Bob Crane and the Color Orange. Gonna post a larger essay on this in the next couple of days. Truly a great contemplation of the high personal cost of grave and persistent sin.

7. Goodbye, Lenin - Entire film. Another movie with a beautiful soul, this 2003 German film is funny, smart and poignant as it portrays a son's love for his mother and the lengths he will go to make her happy. In doing so, we can see how happy it makes him. A touching film on familial bonds and the simple goodness of a son who cares for his mother. Highly recommended.


**Bonus category:

The Single Most Evil Film I Have Ever Watched:

1. Strangers When We Meet (1960)

In contrast to movies that have beautiful souls, this film has the dirtiest soul of any movie I have ever seen. Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak "star" in a disgusting glorification of adultery so heavyset, so long-winded and so "adult" that words fail me in describing how offensive it was. The timing of the film also adds to the outrage, as the divorce culture that is so commonplace to us today was in its very fragile infancy in 1960 and star vehicles such as this no doubt helped nurture it to full malignancy. The most unpleasant, depressing and flat-out demonic film I have had the misfortune to experience.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

A Feminist Epiphany

An old-guard feminist finally figures out that sexual liberation is one gigantic buffet for the very kind of men who would never respect a woman in the first place:

In my day, the rules were there for us. Back then there was no abortion and no pill, and my friends and I knew that what we called “going all the way” could ruin our lives. It is not that we didn’t have physical sexual longing, but we went out with guys who understood that there were ways to satisfy -- and it wasn’t oral sex. We kind of could be satisfied through touching; we could be physically satisfied with what we called petting. I went out with a lot of guys, and there was an understanding. I was never pushed to go all the way.

Not a hint of an apology though. Not a drop of "Hmmm, maybe we were wrong about all of this and maybe we've made things far, far worse for those who came along after us."

Once again, we see that being a liberal means never having to truly stand up to the consequences of your own actions.

Monday, July 8, 2013

They're Forgetting One Voice in Particular

The emotional opinion piece in the New York Times is starkly titled, "My Mother's Abortion."

The author focuses solely on individual experience and personal feeling to justify and drive her support for this abomination:

Recently, I heard my mother reveal her experience to four friends who are devoted to protecting women’s right to choose. Strikingly, two of them revealed that they had had an abortion, and the other two had close friends who’d had an abortion. None had told my mother before.
What the movement for reproductive rights needs is for the faces of freedom to emerge from the captivity of shame. To my mother’s generation, I ask: Speak openly about the choices you have made. To all women: ask your mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, aunts, sisters, daughters and partners about their reproductive histories. Show that abortion has myriad faces: those of women we love, respect and cherish. You have the power to cement in the minds of your communities and families the importance of reproductive freedom. You have made decisions that are private, even anguishing, but the weight of this political moment demands that you shed light on those decisions.

Well, we're leaving one crucial individual experience out of this, aren't we, Ms. Reproductive Rights Warrior?

Too bad we can't have one of the victims of this mass infanticide file an opinion piece from the Great Beyond charged with personal feeling and fitted with the stark title:

"My Mother's Abortion."

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

10 Years and Still No Baseball Games

Happy anniversary... to me!

10 years ago, on July 1, 2003, I went through one of the more jarring personal experiences with our new society imaginable. Arrested at a Baltimore Orioles baseball game because of a ridiculously overzealous usher and a warped and spiteful police officer, I was escorted in handcuffs via paddy wagon to a true hellhole known as Baltimore Central Lockup, where I got to experience... well, I'll let the story speak for itself:

Eventually morning came and still nothing, no word on when I would get out or anything. And after sleeping and eating and even more waiting and waiting, the cellblock started to get more agitated and lively. And that's when the threats came. It didn't exactly come as a shock that skinny white guys like me are going to get threatened in jail, but it did shock me that as much as 20 minutes could go by without a guard so much as walking past my cell. And so what do you do when, after having overheard hours of casual conversation about stabbings and beating people over the head with baseball bats, etc., etc., you're told by a group of men, all of whom are bigger and stronger than you, that they are going to rape you in one hour? Maybe they were just trying to frighten me, who knows, but you know what, who cares? It's still gonna scare the living hell out of you and it was just such a bizarre, surreal experience to be standing there powerless, knowing that I could easily - easily - have my life literally destroyed at any time. It just didn't seem real to me, which looking back I have to say was a good thing. In between Our Fathers and Hail Marys all I could really think was "What's the score man? What's the score?" as these guys kept telling me crudely and pointedly that they were going to assault me in one hour.

Sentenced to community service, I made a promise to myself as I labored within eyesight of Camden Yards, home of the Orioles:

So on a very pleasant Tuesday in September, 2003 I reported to a community services center in the Pigtowne section of Baltimore to complete my rehabilitation. Three other community service peons joined me, and we were assigned the task of mowing, raking and cleaning up three small vacant lots near the center. It was really all too perfect. The location turned out to be just a couple of blocks from Camden Yards, and I could see the light stantions from Oriole Park as I did the work.
And so as I was bagging grass cuttings in a urine-stenched lot while staring at the twinkling spires of one of Bud Selig's golden palaces of greed, I could only think how this was such a fitting farewell to Major League Baseball and the incompetent fools who have driven yet another fan away forever. What's the score, Bud? What's the score?

And here we are 10 years later and what has changed? The foreboding direction I could clearly see stadium security hurtling towards in 2003 has gotten worse and worse over the years. Observe this example of a fan arrest at an Arizona Cardinals football game. Not much to see as to the actual arrest but note the dire warning on the scoreboard encouraging fans to report each other to authorities:

(0:08 mark)



So glad to see that the Soviet-era neighbor-watching-neighbor model is still thriving at major sporting events. I personally noticed it for the first time at that Orioles game back in '03. Up to that point, I had never seen messages like that on a scoreboard at a game.

But wait... there's more! Seattle Seahawks fans can look forward to an experience more in line with the TSA than the traditional sports usher as they enter the stadium for the NFL team's games this season. Check out this story from last month:

On Friday, CenturyLink Field emailed season-ticket holders information about the new rules, which were announced by the Seahawks and 31 other NFL teams Thursday to make security searches quicker and easier.
Fans are encouraged to leave all bags at home. If that doesn’t work for them, fans can bring one clear plastic bag (the Ziploc freezer variety, for example) or a clear tote sized 12 inches by 6 inches by 12 inches, in addition to a purse small enough to fit in your hand — a so-called clutch.
Any other kind of large bag is forbidden, including larger purses, coolers, fanny packs, cinch bags, diaper bags, laptop bags and large camera bags. Season-ticket holders will receive an appropriately sized clear vinyl bag for free.
Seat cushions are also banned because they could conceal an explosive device, the NFL said. Signs and banners must be standard letter-sized or smaller, at 8.5 by 11 inches.

And baseball hasn't changed a single bit. How about the out-of-town fan arrested in Washington, D.C. at a Nationals game for trying to get rid of tickets for face value or less for a game he would not be in town for?

The officer wanted to know what I was asking. Not wanting to be labeled a scalper, I said, “Love to get face value.” These words started a Kafka-esque journey into the D.C. criminal justice system.
Told to stand against a wall, I was informed that I was under arrest for “solicitation.” I explained that I was from out of town and that I was not trying to “scalp,” and I apologized for not knowing that what I was doing was a crime. As the officer ran a check on my Minnesota driver’s license, I wondered how bad the ticket would be.
The officer came back and told the trainee to call for transport.
“You going to do this?” the trainee asked, somewhat incredulously.
“Absolutely.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.
“Does it look like I’m kidding?” the officer replied. Things went downhill from there.

The original article that I wrote back in 2004 garnered a good amount of reader responses, even though there was no comments section to post on. These readers all emailed their comments. From across the country fans and citizens decried the eroding of freedoms we all used to take for granted only a few years earlier. I saved one letter from a commenter who wrote:

I do not go to "events" anymore, ever. No sports, no concerts, no picnics, no Disneyland, no nothing. It's not worth it. I'm boycotting all of society because it sucks. The scumbags have taken over, and only by completely rejecting them and their bull will decent normal people ever have a chance just to live free ever again.
I urge you boycott society, also, and tell everyone why. If you don't, then you are part of the problem, considering the Truth you discovered by direct personal experience.

Well, it's been 10 years without Major League Baseball and I can't say it's been much of a sacrifice. In fact, I've barely noticed it. I have attended a few hockey, basketball and football games that I got free tickets from somebody for and without exception the experience was awful. All this security crap combined with the bombardment of nonstop advertising and artificial bells and whistles makes for a truly terrible live experience. I have written on this elsewhere.

It saddens to me to say that I must agree with that letter writer who doesn't go to "events" anymore. It's not only a political statement on my part, though there is some of that in the decision. Mostly it's that I feel like a sap for feeding at this corrupt corporate trough. Quite simply, almost everything that passes for an "event" in our modern decaying society today is just not worth doing.

I can honestly say that I don't feel I am missing out on anything. Except the possibility of being gang raped in an inner city prison, of course.

Corporate sports are setting us up for the corporate police state. Turn away and don't look back. Believe me, sports fans, it's a lot easier than you think.