- Days `til April Fools' Day: 23
- Percent of March that's over: 24.7%
- Percent of people in America who are black: 10% (rough)
- Percent of prisoners in U.S. who are black: 49% (rough)
(Population Percentage Source:
www.census.gov)
(Prison Percentage Source:
www.prisonpolicy.org)
- Number of Google Search results for keywords "percentage black prisoners U.S.": 1,110,000
- Number of Notable films opening in March: 10
- Number of notable films opening in March starring John Travolta, Adrien Brody, Vin Diesel, Kevin Costner or Will Ferrell: 5
- Number of notable films opening in March starring any actress famous for more than just being beautiful or fucking someone more famous: 0
- Diet Coke® invented: 1982
- Diet Cherry Coke® invented: 1986
- Diet Coke w/Lemon® invented: 2001
- Diet Vanilla Coke® invented: 2002
- Diet Coke w/Lime® invented: 2004
- Diet Vanilla Cherry Dr. Pepper® invented: 2004: Now, THAT, my friends, is evolution. If you're going to die of cancer from drinking diet soda, there's simply no better diet soda from which to catch cancer than Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper®.
- Number of GMAIL Accounts I have to give: 50: Drop me a line (maryscott.oconnor@gmail.com) and if you're among the 50 lucky ones, I'll respond with a Gmail invitation. These fuckers are like GOLD, I'm telling you. GOOOOOLD.
Alternate Adjectives Considered for Today's C&J Title:
Miscreant | Marginal | Misanthropic | Mercurial | Macabre | Masturbatory | Mellifluous | Monotone | Milquetoast | Melancholy | Moribund | Marvelous | Melodrama | Miraculous | Magnificent | Mediocre | Middling | Moderate | Mainstream
and, of course...
MOTHERFUCKING
In the interest of offending as few people as possible, I opted NOT to use the word "Motherfucking" in the title. This, despite the fact that I LOVE the word "motherfucking." Despite, also, the fact that almost anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with me or my prosaic patois knows I love the word "motherfucking." So, I must content myself with using the word "motherfucking" and all variants thereof as frequently as possible in the BODY of the motherfucking diary, instead of just using "motherfucking." in the motherfucking title, the way I really motherfucking wanted to.
CHEERS to GEARS -- as in, someone get them moving and invent an email-type option thingy on a C & J thread, wherein we only have to click the comment ratings of the ones we DON'T want to lavish with hot 4 monkey love... Hmm. That doesn't look right...
JEERS to FEARS ...like "taphephobia."
Hint: Edgar Allan Poe probably suffered from it. Oh, fine. FINE, I'll tell you.
"Taphephobia" is the fear of being buried alive.
CHEERS to BEERS "I'll take Ancient Egypt over modern Egypt anyday, Alex."
...Apparently the Egyptians did not have quite the same view of alcohol consumption as their Muslim descendants:
"Since beer, and to a lesser extent, wine, were a common part of the diet of ancient Egyptians, they were of course familiar with the aftereffects of these beverages. Losing control through excessive drinking was discouraged, though this disapproval was aimed more at the loss of control rather than the state of intoxication itself. An excessive level of intoxication, leading to a loss of control, was looked upon with varying degrees of mild disapproval. The drunken person was viewed mostly with amused contempt or slight alarm, while efforts were made to warn the young against getting drunk too much or too often. During the New Kingdom, images of guests vomiting at banquets and parties were depicted in scenes of the elite, particularly during the 18th Dynasty." (Getting Wasted in Ancient Egypt)
Maybe getting wasted was also the cure for taphephobia. Being as it wasn't an IRRATIONAL fear in them days...
JEERS to GONDOLIERS, on the endless, lazy river of tears that is the legacy of American torture. Approved if not outright ordered by Americans, carried out by Americans, covered up by Americans, denied by Americans, minimized by Americans, rationalized by Americans...
It seems there are a few Americans who might have thought the best way to deal with an uppity female Italian journalist who'd already exposed the war crimes of certain Americans before her kidnapping was... to assassinate her as she approached freedom? Too late, assholes.
The definitive article on torture by Giuliana Sgrena ran in a July issue of her paper, il Manifesto: Iraqi Woman Tortured at Abu Ghraib.
If this WAS an assassination attempt, I guess no one should be surprised it failed. Is there anything that anyone associated with this fucking Administration hasn't fucked up???
CHEERS to TEARS. Hard to believe there's anyone left out there in Kossackstan who
hasn't read it, but in case you missed it:
A Promise to My Grandfather: A Follow-Up, by amprather.
Warning: Even the hardest hearted, most cynical bastard on dKos will need a full box of Kleenex for this one. Go on, let it out, ya softies. You, too, Nyberg.
JEERS to ENGINEERS Let's be really clear about this:
Watergate was a fucking hotel. The Karl Roves of the Nixon's Administration (among them Roger Ailes, G. Gordon Liddy and... shocker... Karl Rove), sure they were impervious to such niggling little things like laws and consequences, hired them some maroons to break into the Democrats's headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.
ChoicePoint: The Watergate Hotel
Database Technonologies: Some fucking Maroons
Florida's voter registration records: Democratic National campaign headquarters
Want your horoscope? I'm getting something... some numbers... 2217 Ah. Yes. 2217 -- The year they finally admit what has been obvious since 2000:
The motherfuckers stole it in 2000. And then they stole it in 2004, `cause it just felt so goddamned good.
What's that, you say? Maybe this Guardian Article Does bring up some rather improbable coincidences, but even if it WERE proven they stole the election in 2000 by using one of their RNC Corporate Mutual Masturbators to mamipulate the vote in Florida, how can you possibly extrapolate from that htat they stole the election in 2004?
C'mere. No, closer, so I can take my tinfoil hat and shove it up your ASSSSSS. Remember your mother's advice? "If he cheats once, he'll cheat again." Or was it, "If he beats the shit out of you and then brings you flowers, he'll beat the shit out of you again."
Now go to your room and pick up every single piece of your shattered illusions, you bad, BAD American.
CHEERS to PIONEERS -- Bill Hicks, a brilliant comic and social commentator whose life was far too brief. get thee to Netflix and rent his stuff. Then drop by a Denis Leary fan site and announce you've discovered the source of his '90s material.
(This Cheer is dedicated to Daily Kos's favourite non-com in the War on the War on Drugs, Nephalim: If you have not read his various AMAZING diaries on the subject, you are really missing out.)
...if I was going to have a drug be legal, it would not be alcohol, you know why? There's better drugs and better drugs for you. That's a fact, so you can stop your internal dialogue. "Wait a minute, Bill, alcohol is an accepted form of social interaction which for thousands of years has been the norm under which human beings have congregated in the form of social events and..." -- Shut the fuck up. Your denial is beneath you, and thanks to the use of hallucinogenic drugs, I see through you. Pot is a better drug than alcohol.
... I have never heard one reason that rang true why marijuana is against the law. That rang true, now, I'm not talking about the reasons the government tells us, because I hope you know this, I think you do, all governments are lying cocksuckers. I hope you know that. Good.
I mean, marijuana grows everywhere, it serves a thousand different functions, all of them positive. To make marijuana against the law is like saying God made a mistake, you know what I mean? It's like God, on the seventh day, looked down on his creation and said, "There it is. My creation. Perfect and holy in all ways. Now, I can rest... Oh my me. I left fucking pot everywhere. I should never have smoked that joint on the third day. Shit. If I leave pot everywhere, that's gonna give people the impression they're supposed to use it. Shit. Now I have to create Republicans."
...And God wept. I believe is the next verse. You know what I mean? I believe that God left certain drugs growing naturally upon our planet to help speed up and facilitate our evolution.
...The war on drugs to me is absolutely phony, it's so obviously phony, ok? It's a war against our civil rights, that's all it is. They're using it to make us afraid to go out at night, afraid of each other, so that we lock ourselves in our homes and they get suspending our rights one by one. And the fight against the war against drugs .
...Why is pot against the law? It wouldn't be because anyone can grow it and therefore you can't make a profit off it would it?
...Aaah, they lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Liiiiiiie.
When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well, You just realise, it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference.
"Sure I can get up at dawn, go to a job I hate, that does not inspire me creatively whatsoever, for the rest of my fucking life. Or I can wake up at noon and learn how to play the sitar!"
Pretty simple when it's spelled out in black and white isn't it?
JEERS to DEBEERS: In case there's a liberal out there who isn't aware of the evil that has been and continues to be perpetrated in the pursuit of the diamond market, here are a few links to get you started.
The first word is "exploitation." The next word is "bullshit." Who decided diamonds were the best rock on the planet to possess? If you do an hour's worth of decent research on the history of the diamond mining industry in general or the DeBeers company in particular, I don't know how you can walk away ever being able to look at those stones the same way again.
Sure, they're pretty. So are cubic fucking zirconia. THEY'RE ROCKS! They're shiny, sparkly fucking ROCKS. Man. Human beings can be convinced of ANYTHING.
Look at that fuckstick in the White House. Don't tell ME people aren't stupid. <grumble grumble grumble>
Go read. Those fucking rocks are in worse shape than Lady Macbeth's hands.
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/thoughts/doc694.html
http://www.ewtn.com/library/BUSINESS/ANTDEBRS.HTM
http://www.cryfreetown.org/pre90s.html
http://www.africanfront.com/bloodgems.php
CHEERS to PEERS. We've had our disagreements (UNDERSTATEMENT ALERT), but in case there were ever any doubts as to whether the wacky and often moderately infuriating (pun most definitely
intended) JIACINTO cares about the Democratic Party,
This comment in the "Can the Dems Work with the DLC? Discussion ought to clear up any misapprehensions.
Jiacinto is fond of criticising those of us on the "extreme left" - and is not always wrong... But be honest, Jiacinto, baby - if there is such a thing as an "extreme middle," you could be its Chairman. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
JEERS to CAREERS... the ones that ought to have died quick and merciful deaths - and instead rise, phoenixian, to taunt us all for at least one more goddamned motherfucking season of macho mediocrity:
Vin Diesel's low-brow comedy
Box Office Junkie Alert opened in first place this weekend with a whopping $30 million.
Contrast that with the $23 million second place opening, John Travolta and a host of other ludicrously cool players in Be Cool, based on Elmore Leonard's ultra-hip novel. Find yourself a statistician, sit down with her and compare the box office differential between a Piece-of-Shit Vin Diesel "comedy" and a Pedigreed Travolta Comedy to the differential between the Official* Popular Vote in the last Presidential "Election."
Now you do the math. Let us know what YOU find out, because I took a quick peek and realized... There are more stupid people in this country than it can sustain.
Let me break this down for you, give you an idea of what transpired at the box office this weekend:
Be Cool
Director: F. Gary Gray. Previous Credits: The Italian Job, The Negotiator, Set It Off and Friday.
Writer: Elmore Leonard. Enough Said.
Stars: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Danny DeVito, Cedric the Entertainer, Vince Vaughn, Harvey Keitel, James Woods... Enough Said.
The Pacifier
Director: Adam Shankman. Previous credits: The Wedding Planner, A Walk to Remember and Bringing Down the House.
Writers: Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant. Taxi. The movie. Not the television series.
Stars: Vin Diesel. Enough Said.
CHEERS to REAPPEARS: As in, the Encino 7 gathering last month was such a success that we, the Encino 7, decided to do it every month. You can read about it at the updated diary, titled, oddly enough,
Kossacks Gone Wild: The Encino 7. Included in your detour will be: more fun text boxes, dancing gifs, a picture of the Encino 7 gathered around our table at Jerry's Deli, a brief synopsis of the gathering... and information on the upcoming March 2005 Gathering of the... uh, well, it's going to be in Woodland Hills and we don't know how many of you will be there, so, um - if you're in Los Angeles, drop by the diary and pick up the RSVP info...
JEERS to little green footballs. On November 3, 1952, Clarence Birdseye first marketed frozen peas. We hate `em, hate `em, hate `em. (But, coupled with a spoon, they make awesome catapult fodder at the dinner table.)
CHEERS to blogs. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." C&J has earned the equivalent of a Masters in Political Science thanks to Kos, Atrios, MyDD, Josh Marshall, Steve Soto and the rest. Over the next 4 years, we aim to get our Ph.D. Blog on!
CHEERS to Bill Hicks, again:
It's great to be here. I thank you. Ah, I've been on the road doing comedy for ten years now, so bear with me while I plaster on a fake smile and plough through this shit one more time...
You gotta bear with me, I'm very tired, very tired of traveling, and very tired of doing comedy, and very tired of staring out at your vacant faces looking back at me, wanting me to fill your empty lives with humor you couldn't possibly think of yourselves. Good evening.
Always that same LSD story, you've all seen it.
"Young man on acid, thought he could fly, jumped out of a building. What a tragedy."
What a dick, fuck him! He's an idiot. If he thought he could fly, why didn't he take off from the ground first? Check it out. You don't see ducks lining up to catch elevators to fly South. They fly from the ground, you moron.
How about a positive LSD story, that would be newsworthy. Don't you think? Anybody think that? Just once, to hear a positive LSD story.
"Today, a young man on acid, realised that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves... here's Tom with the weather..."
By the way that thing I just did, about matter is energy condensed to a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, and dadada, that thing I just did? ...Einstein proved that. It's called "quantum physics."
A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he's gonna want to see a fucking cross, man? May be why he hasn't shown up yet. "Man, they're still wearing crosses. Fuck it, I'm not goin, dad. No, they totally missed the point. When they start wearing fishes I might show up again, but...
...People ask me where I stood politically you know. It's not that I disagree with Bush's economic policy or his foreign policy. But... I believe he is a child of Satan here to destroy the planet Earth. Yeah, I'm a little... a little to the left there.
The world is like a ride at an amusement park. It goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while.
Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question, is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey - don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride..." And we... kill those people.
"Shut [them] up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut [them] up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real."
Just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok: Jesus -- murdered; Martin Luther King -- murdered; Malcolm X -- murdered; Gandhi -- murdered; John Lennon -- murdered; Reagan... wounded.
But it doesn't matter because: It's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love.
The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off.
The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one.
Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defences each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.