- Joe Strummer was born 61 years ago today. The Clash were never the only band that mattered, but once they mattered to me. Was looking for Clash songs, and meh. It saddens me how grandpa The Clash sound to me now. I'll take the blame.
- I'm told I often don't yodel enough what I think I yodel too often and yodel too much what I don't think I yodel enough, so to restate in response to one question: of course I know that while the NSA sweeps up my verbiage it has no interest in what I say or intention of using it against me until and unless I give them cause, which admittedly is unlikely (though less so than yesterday, hopefully not as much as tomorrow). I may or not be inching towards some forms of civil disobedience, but the train wreck of the clusterfuck is rushing towards me, I'm not running towards it. I'm not sure how the fact that I'm an insignificant blogger of no interest to the NSA means I shouldn't worry about the NSA sweeping up even my crappy voluntarily self-incriminating verbiage. To yodel: the spying is not about terrorism, it's about intimidation, control, and fear. It's to keep me docile and not worth viewing my surveillance by my overlords.
- True of my face, for the moment, too. So I shouldn't be concerned. And will it be against the law to wear a Groucho mask while walking on a public sidewalk?
- Whenever I type in one of my senators names I get scrubbed by a US Senate bot. I've never been scrubbed after naming my congressman or governor. I have a regular reader from Ortfay Eademay and a regular reader from OJDay, though I'm convinced they are just folk who occasionally read this blog.
- Obama's Department of Education monitored Diane Ravitch.
- Obama administration blacklisting Muslims.
- Re: Greenwald. Saying he shouldn't be part to the story doesn't make him not part of the story. I don't know what his take is; I don't know what his take of his take is. I don't think him a thoroughly honest broker though I think him more honest than the majority of his attackers, especially those who were fine with him when George Bush was in office. But the visceral hate directed towards him IS part of the story no matter how much it shouldn't be. Which is my prejudice, the enjoyment of watching people get apoplectic over Greenwald. It's fascinating. This is on me: my apologies for indulging the giggles.
- For instance, drug mule.
- UPDATE! on the fucker in the above link.
- UPDATE! Lisa invites you to have your photo taken by undercover policemen tonight at the White House.
- Fuck the Guardian, part one.
- I am in complete sympathy if not total agreement with this comment to the above post: I like the theory that they are literally trying to mop up every physical copy of the files, and that the evidence for this is that they have to mule the shit around on flash drives. This is a very dangerous way to operate, as it really does risk the destruction of the files. Which leads me to my second point: I am in complete disagreement with Snowden and/or Greenwald’s argument that the leaker has the right to dictate the terms of the release of this information to its rightful owners: the public. Yeah, cheers, thanks a lot for breaking it out, but if you think you now get to tell me how I’m going to consume this information, eat shit. They’re not going to attack him MORE for dumping it — if anything, he’d then be irrelevant. And all along, Snowden has said some of the files he showed Greenwald for context really shouldn’t be released to the public because they really could damage what I can only assume he considers the “legitimate” intelligence gathering capabilities of the United States government, something for which I am utterly without sympathy. Dump all the files NOW, end this silly sideshow involving the shitty Guardian and the irrelevant personalities of Snowden and Greenwald, and remove the possibility that the empire really could regain control of this information and subsume it back into its body of secrets.
- Why progressives are lame.
- FBI visits anti-fracking activists in Maryland. When driving through Washington and Greene counties in western Pennsylvania recently saw LOTS of anti-fracking bumperstickers, even a couple of billboards, so I expect the FBI is visiting those counties too.
- Throw Arthur the coins in you pocket. And I understand you not reading me, I don't understand why you're not reading him.
- What you can buy me for my birthday. If you haven't read The Kindly Ones, obtain and read The Kindly Ones.
- Anthony's lit-links.
- The test of fantasy.
- Penderecki.
- Three and a half minutes of unabashed ear candy?
ENVOY
Lisa Robertson
I have tried to say
that, although Love is not judgement
analysis too is a style
of affect
since the scale that rends me vulnerable
has cut, from abundance, doubt
(not that identity shunts
civic ratio or consequence) Sure —
I would prefer to respond to only
the established charms (and forget inconvenience)
but her hair was also a kind of honey
or instrument.
All that is beautiful, from which I choose
even artifice, which I hold above nature
won’t salve these stuttered accoutrements
