Ken Layne

We should probably quit employing Death Eaters in our military...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:51:27 -0800

We should probably quit employing Death Eaters in our military … although that would probably defeat the purpose of having an Imperial Military.

occupyallstreets:

Marine gets no jail time in killing of 24 Iraqi civilians

Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich will not serve a jail sentence following his guilty plea in the killing of 24 Iraqis in 2005, a military judge said Tuesday.

The announcement by Lt. Col. David Jones came after Wuterich took responsibility during his sentencing hearing at Camp Pendleton for the killings in the Euphrates River town of Haditha and expressed remorse to the victims’ families.

Jones said he had planned to recommend 90 days in the brig — the maximum as requested by the prosecution — but that the plea bargain approved by Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser had called for no jail time.

Wuterich, 31, was the last of eight Marines charged in the Haditha killings to have his case resolved. Six had the charges against them dropped, and one Marine was acquitted.

As the squad leader, Wuterich ordered his Marines “to shoot first, ask questions later” as they stormed two houses on Nov. 19, 2005, after a roadside bomb had killed one Marine and injured two others.

Source

Photo

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:04:40 -0800

Happy new … uhh, never mind. Everybody watch out, for...

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:38:03 -0800

Happy new … uhh, never mind. Everybody watch out, for everything!

blog-soup:

This sums it up well.

"TERRY: Because I think what is killing us is the level of comfort, this of complacency. What you..."

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:24:48 -0800

“TERRY: Because I think what is killing us is the level of comfort, this of complacency. What you have said repeatedly is one person can make a difference, we are powerful, we can disrupt the status quo, right? Even at a multimillion-dollar oil and gas auction. And if the government isn’t going to do it for us, if our nonprofits aren’t going to do it, if the environmental movement isn’t going to do it, who’s going to do it? We can no longer look for leadership beyond ourselves. TIM: Yeah, exactly. And I think our current power structures only have power over us because of what they can take away from us. That’s where their power comes from—their ability to take things away. And so if we have a lot that we’re afraid of losing, or that we’re not willing to lose, they have a lot of power over us.”

- Interview: Tim DeChristopher and Terry Tempest Williams | Terry Tempest Williams | Orion Magazine

2012: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy As the Human World Breaks Apart

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:07:53 -0800

2012: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy As the Human World Breaks Apart:

So I wrote my year-end piece for Wonkette, and it’s basically a very long Mayan Apocalypse/2012 rant that ends up yelling at Radiohead for being frauds, because they wouldn’t go play their guitars for 10 minutes at Occupy Wall Street.

(via weather.com US: Departure from Normal-Highs)

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:53:33 -0800

(via weather.com US: Departure from Normal-Highs)

It is never easy to write books. I have less trouble with the...

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:48:00 -0800

Spindrift Point.

Evidence of actual work being done.

Sleeping quarters, end of room.

It is never easy to write books. I have less trouble with the actual writing than finding a quiet place to concentrate on the task at hand. Not being rich and usually being poor, there’s also the whole working problem, and it is generally useless for me to try to write anything consequential after a day of typing newspaper pieces or political insults for a website. A long time ago, coming back from a (domestic) Balkan war zone and taking a breather in Budapest, I got in the habit of seizing some quiet place and writing in complete solitude for as long as I could stand, a couple of weeks or a month or whatever was possible.

Smarter people just build a shack behind their house and do the writing there, but I never live anyplace long enough to construct a hut. And so, when deadlines real or imagined make their appearance, I run off to a lair somewhere. A decade ago, I rented a beach house south of Ensenada in the off season, $450 for the whole month. The result was a ridiculous parody of the 1990s humorous detective thriller. But it got published (in Australia), and with the $5,000 I bought an old Jeep that lasted for many years and ended my novelty existence as a Los Angeles resident without a car.

And so I’m up in this one-room cabin on the cliffs near Muir Beach. It belonged to a sailor and writer named Charles Borden, author of many swashbuckling tales of the seas and a great lover of wild places. When he died in 1968, he willed the four-acre ragged point of rock and pine to a conservation group in San Francisco. It is absolutely quiet, except for the low roar of the waves far below, and the entire cabin is built of glass panels with redwood beams and planks. Inside is outside, as it should be, and it feels like a narrow sailboat was stranded on this rock fifty years ago and grew into a house of sorts. From the glass walls, I look down on the backs of pelicans and turkey buzzards drifting by on the air below. A big freighter appears on the horizon once or twice a day, and slowly moves through the Golden Gate.

The West Coast ports will be shut down by the Occupations next week; the Sunday paper had a full-page ad from the Port of Oakland arguing against this, using the language of Occupy Wall Street. (“We are the 99%,” etc.)

Right now I’m working on a non-fiction book that should’ve been finished long ago, but it’s better that there’s a two-year gap between the events and the writing. It is almost always better to think about things for a couple of years. There are so many books, and so many are unnecessary.

Weirdly enough, the only book I’ve written that I’ve been satisfied with is Dignity, and I wrote that in spare hours here and there over about six months. But I could only write when my house was empty, when there was a rare day off work, when everyone else was gone, and some of my favorite chapters were written in my car on windy winter days in the desert, after a hike with the dog.

(It is time to sleep now, after a couple thousand words today. That’s why I am allowed to post nonsense on my own website. Also, as seen in the picture, there’s a history book to read before bed, because it’s always good to have a brain-clearing non-fiction book to look at after a long day of trying to be smart.)

This is from the 30s. What’s that old saying about not learning...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:27:27 -0800

This is from the 30s. What’s that old saying about not learning from history?

maxistentialist: Barrett

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 12:05:26 -0800

maxistentialist:

Barrett

Worth another, slow read: @Xeni's Q&A with #OWS Bat Signal Team

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:48:44 -0800

Worth another, slow read: @Xeni's Q&A with #OWS Bat Signal Team:

Mark Read on Boing Boing:

“It’s the beginning of the beginning.” I loved that one. So frequently, things happen in the world that make it feel like we’re at the beginning of the end. But—”the beginning of the beginning,” what a radically optimistic statement that is.

The scale of the environmental and economic crisis we are facing, it’s extraordinary. This movement is a response to that crisis. Our leaders aren’t responding to any of that in a way that is commensurate to the crises we face. And that one sign has always spoken to me. We have to throw off our despair about the future world we might be facing, because if we come together as people and humanity, we can change it. And what Occupy Wall Street makes me feel is that for the first time in a long time that might be possible.

That means a lot to me. This is choosing hope over despair. This is actively and resolutely making that choice. It’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be over in two months. It’s not going to be just the result of conversation.

"That’s pretty much what the schools are like, I think: they reward discipline and obedience, and..."

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:30:28 -0800

“That’s pretty much what the schools are like, I think: they reward discipline and obedience, and they punish independence of mind. If you happen to be a little innovative, or maybe you forgot to come to school one day because you were reading a book or something, that’s a tragedy, that’s a crime - because you’re not supposed to think, you’re supposed to obey, and just proceed through the material in whatever way they require.”

- Hahaha, I think I’ll print out this Noam Chomsky quote and staple it to my first-grader’s next Behavior Report. (You know, because he gets bored sitting there after the work is done, and wants to draw or talk or hear a story.) — Via cultureofresistance.

Matt Langer: Here's a thought!

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:25:37 -0800

Matt Langer: Here's a thought!:

langer:

It’s novel, I know, but seriously: If you, in your professional capacity as a reporter, run a story based on what “policemen say,” when what “policemen say” has been clearly and thoroughly contradicted beyond any and all reasonable doubt by who knows how many thousands of firsthand…

Congressional Support Grows For Bill To Shut Down Any Website

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:29:21 -0800

Congressional Support Grows For Bill To Shut Down Any Website:

Here’s a post I just typed up for Wonkette, about the delightful new “Great Firewall” law the “Bipartisan Congress” is cooking up for Obama to sign. And, I guess, this will be all blocked out by Tumblr for the CENSORED stunt, which is good?

Long ago I lived in a moldy Victorian in the Lower Haight with five gentlemen.

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:42:46 -0800

Long ago I lived in a moldy Victorian in the Lower Haight with five gentlemen.:

Here is Tony Pierce writing about it.

"Get back into your cages, they are telling us. Return to watching the lies, absurdities, trivia and..."

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:08:33 -0800

“Get back into your cages, they are telling us. Return to watching the lies, absurdities, trivia and celebrity gossip we feed you in 24-hour cycles on television. Invest your emotional energy in the vast system of popular entertainment. Run up your credit card debt. Pay your loans. Be thankful for the scraps we toss. Chant back to us our phrases about democracy, greatness and freedom. Vote in our rigged political theater. Send your young men and women to fight and die in useless, unwinnable wars that provide corporations with huge profits. Stand by mutely as our bipartisan congressional super committee, either through consensus or cynical dysfunction, plunges you into a society without basic social services including unemployment benefits. Pay for the crimes of Wall Street.”

- I almost always agree with Chris Hedges, and have long admired him for dumping the NYT for becoming a Prophet. But his writing isn’t always so awesome. This column is awesome: http://www.truth-out.org/what-revolution-looks/1321384587 )

What’s up, CNN? Oh. [via the Awesome UFOS & Aliens]

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:15:26 -0800

What’s up, CNN? Oh. [via the Awesome UFOS & Aliens]

When Badass Environmental Groups Fight Back (Against Brand-Name Environmental Groups)

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:48:00 -0800

When Badass Environmental Groups Fight Back (Against Brand-Name Environmental Groups):

cultureofresistance:

John Sauven, Executive Director of Greenpeace, attacked Sea Shepherd today in a Huffington Post story accusing us of being counter productive to the campaign of saving whales. “We have to say each to their own tactics. We think strategically to fight our battles and we feel that we are winning the battle against whaling by talking to the Japanese themselves,” he stated. “Sea Shepherd are confronting Japanese people aggressively and it is exacerbating nationalism, and actually making it more difficult.”

What do you mean “we” John? The battle is in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary not in your offices. We will be there, but where will Greenpeace ships be next month? Promotional tours? Banner hanging? Sending more origami whales?

Let me see John…Greenpeace builds a 33 million Euro ship to conduct fundraising tours while we intervene directly against illegal Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean. While you guys sent origami whales to President Obama to protest Japanese whaling, we sent the Japanese fleet home with only 17% of their kill quota. Sea Shepherd has prevented the slaughter of nearly 3,000 whales while Greenpeacers were sitting and eating whale meat with the Japanese to demonstrate so-called sensitivity to Japanese culture. Greenpeace street solicitors tell the public that they send ships to the Southern Ocean, although they have not done so since 2006. They blatantly lie to raise funds.

Sea Shepherd has bankrupted the Japanese whaling fleet. That’s activism John. Having tea with whalers is well, rather pathetic - just saying.

As a co-founder of Greenpeace, I have to say that they are now nothing more than the world’s biggest “feel good” organization pretending to solve problems while growing a larger and more entrenched bureaucracy every year. I feel like Dr. Frankenstein having helped to create this big green monstrous fundraising corporate entity that IS NOT in Taiji saving dolphins, that IS NOT in the Southern Ocean saving whales, HAS NOT been off Newfoundland for two decades saving seals, HAS NOT done anything to protect bluefin tuna, HAS NOT opposed the slaughter of pilot whales in the Faeroe Islands, and actually DOES endorse the hunting of polar bears in Canada and Alaska. They are a sham, a fraud, and an embarrassment.

They have raised over 50 million dollars to oppose whaling in the Southern Ocean and they have used this money to fund additional fundraising efforts to raise more money. It’s a disgrace and now they are condemning our activism saying we are making it difficult for them to “save” whales. I think what they are really saying is that we are making it difficult for them to continue to raise money by doing nothing.

More #OWS photos, 10/2011.

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:41:00 -0700

#OWS

Mystery

When the weather was still good

More #OWS photos, 10/2011.

Some pictures from #Occupy Wall Street, October 2011.

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:34:00 -0700

Zuccotti Park

Kitchen

Busy busy

All from October 2011

Signs

Magic Graveyard

By subject

#OWS Library

H. Nolan was one of those I brought down

Evening

Some pictures from #Occupy Wall Street, October 2011.

So that Sasha Frere-Jones column about Death Metal led me to the...

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:42:00 -0700

So that Sasha Frere-Jones column about Death Metal led me to the Oregon act Wolves in the Throne Room. I don’t know anything about this subculture other than some outrage at Eurovision maybe a decade ago when a Scandinavian monster-costumed group that looked like 1980s’ GWAR won the disco award or something? Vague television memories from living in the Balkans, mid-nineties. Whatever, this Wolves’ music here is majestic and hypnotic. I’ve been on a Philip Glass opera kick lately, when I’m not listening to medieval liturgical music or this weird Russian ambient station in iTunes Radio, and this fits right in there. The guys in Wolves in the Throne Room are organic farmers/eco-radical people who live and work in the forests of Oregon. I am buying their new record right now, because why not.