the year we make contact

So Poetariat has been silent for a while, but I guess Smokehouse is probably working, and I’ve been putting some effort into my own personal projects. When finished, said projects may or may not be the subject of a future post.

I also have a variety of subjects I’ve been meaning to write about, but every time I think about writing about poodles or television or Icelandic people, it seems to me to be rather like a conversation about trees.

I don’t really have anything to say about Obama’s snoozer of a State of the Union speech the other night, or about the nasty little fascist dorkwad who gave the Republican response. I realize that “fascist” is a bit hackneyed nowadays, but anyone who thinks that Obama’s record has been marked by excessive respect for civil liberties is truly diseased. (Why, yes, I have adopted Frank Zappa’s typographic idiosyncrasies; glad you asked.) Overall, the most interesting quote from that night was when Chris Matthews said, “I forgot he was black for an hour!” Stay classy, Chris.

Anyway, if the American news media had any priorities, there would be two headlines on the front page of the newspaper every day: a really really big one saying FORCES OF EVIL CONTINUE TO CONTROL PLANET, and then underneath that a smaller one saying “Puppies, kittens still adorable.” But to provide some further detail, here are some interesting links I’ve seen since the last time I posted. Some are old, but they are still relevant because a) timely blogging is THE MAN, b) I assume that everyone who reads Poetariat lives in the wilderness on honey and locusts and has no exposure to other media, c) many of the most important news stories only appear once and then nobody ever talks about them again, and d) to paraphrase Ralph Nader, “to know and not to blog is not to know.” Ralph Nader would probably slap me for saying that.

Gitmo North
detainees are nonpersons
11% think free market is working well
Afghanistan wants foreign killers handed over
good 2009 news stories from the Muslim world
Obama wants $741 billion for militarism
…but exploring the universe costs too much
police like to record you, don’t like when you record them; they also steal from innocent people, with Obama’s support
more illegal spying
MPAA wants a censored internet (and spying begins in the UK), and “Bono” also wants censorship. (Honestly, the only crime happening here is that in an era when any bizarre and marvelous music is available at our fingertips, there are still people who feel the need to subject themselves to Bono’s insipid liberal-communist Davos-rock caterwauling. Every night I pray to the gods to unleash the Stark Fist of STFU upon Bono’s house to the third and fourth generations, sevenfold.)
record industry owes up to $6 billion for infringement
sonic weapons used against protesters in the US
John Pilger on Obama as corporate marketing creation; here is the Chris Hedges article he cites in that clip, and here is Pilger’s own piece on the subject, with a truly devastating final paragraph (this is all semi-old, but what the fuck — see also)
and here are a few more worthwhile Hedges articles: political prisoners in the US, war memorials, democracy in America, Martin Luther King, Mike Gravel (I should note, however, that I’m disappointed by the way Hedges writes one article on thought-terminating clichés followed by another article consisting almost solely thereof)
Israeli government suppressing nonviolent protest
The real story on Yemen, more
WHO a front for drug companies?
war criminals professionally unaccountable
US acknowledging Taliban role in Afghanistan, and we might as well, seeing as how we’re funding them
the campaign cash behind the Afghanistan escalation
Gates blocks release of war crimes photos
police tackle woman in labor in ER
civilian “casualties” vs. CIA “victims”
Constitutional rights only when it’s convenient for Obama
presidential assassinations of US citizens abroad
A couple of opinions on the Supreme Court case that killed Howard Zinn
new bank regulation
the Guantánamo “suicides”
Jesus rifles
food fight leads to arrest
pastor calls for economic boycott of Houston due to gay mayor; I guess Providence and Iceland will never recover
schools in Finland
Iceland an offshore publication center? Also, their first horror film has the excellent title of Reykjavík Whale Watching Massacre
surveillance drones in the UK
Free Vermont
most Americans support strip-search machines that don’t work, are sold to us by people with major conflicts of interest, break child pornography laws in some countries, and won’t protect us from the ass bomber; the American Association for Nude Recreation also supports them, which is kind of like if a gay rights organization supported giving the government the power to anally rape you — I think this is a pile of shit, while Erick Williamson rots in (suspended) prison (also, the Dutch are developing portable versions)
HIV came from cats?
Bin Laden wants to save the planet (more on Bin Laden)
banks monitoring social networking sites to see if your friends are riffraff
religious fanatics do stupid things, but if I were Pope John Paul II, I would have whipped myself with a belt too
whites-only basketball league
I get the feeling that the plan is to rid the world of nuclear weapons by blowing it up
bankers buying guns
if you want privacy, you must have something to hide, says Google
1 in 6 chance that your cell phone company provided the police with your GPS data
Blackwater’s youngest victim — never mind Blackwater; why isn’t George W. Bush serving a life sentence, instead of becoming the United States’ way of saying “fuck you” to the people of Haiti?
coming to terms with imperial power
open are the double doors of the Large Hadron Collider
Americans rally in support of Conan O’Brien, but didn’t give a shit when NBC censored a presidential candidate

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