Saturday, December 31, 2005

Wait! It's the 31st? Sh!t!


Mark Moreford Hits the mark again with this end of 2005 editorial:

You Say You Want A Resolution. What to do when the new year invites you in and plies you with drinks and slips you the tongue

Is this the year? Is this the time you reset your intent and cut a wide swath and upset your preconceptions and infuriate the fearmongers and the fundies and the sexually terrified, even as you disavow your grudges and cleanse your spiritual colon and wave your bitchin' flame of self around like a Bic lighter at a 1984 Journey concert? Yes. Yes it is.

Because gosh look, just look outside, right now: Do you see it? It's a whole new year, all lined up and facing into the wind and waiting to play with you like an eager puppy, like a supple French hooker, like a shimmering glass of God's own tequila just sitting on the counter of possibility waiting for you to tip your head back and let that white-hot firewater slide down your throat like a snake of temptation straight into your undernourished id. Are you ready? Because get this: You need to be. I am. How 'bout everyone else?

Because here's the bad news: We have three more ungodly and humiliating and colon-curdling years of BushCo. We have three more years of some of the most miserable foreign and environmental and human-rights policy you will see in your lifetime. I keep telling myself that I am at a freak show ~ so it doesn't get too scary.

We have three more years of brutal unforgivable war and misprision and of the religious right trying to cram its splintered stick of wicked self-righteousness straight up the country's yamdinger, and if I'm here to tell you anything at all I am here to tell you this: Your energy is needed. Right now. As long as I can have a nightcap at the end of the day; I'm in.

Energy of transformation. Energy of possibility. Energy of intellect and clarity and progress and joy and sex and kiss, of change and growth and defiance. Oh I know, it sounds all swoony and big-brushed and impossibly affected. It might sound all froufrou and New Agey and San Francisco. You know what? Who cares. Amen.

For lo, I have seen the great surges of flesh and credit card debt and obesity at the local Wal-Mart, big-box stores erupting like a plague across the land, the relentless American craving for cheap-ass Chinese-made crap and toxic garbage food continuing unabated like some sort of perpetual tsunami that continues to crash against the ravaged shore of common sense. I saw them there yesterday ~ hunting down items at 75% off and they all got bigger over the holidays!

I have seen major industry steep the landscape in enough unchecked pollution to make the ice caps melt and the animals gag and the forests hack like dying emphysema patients, watched massive Midwestern megachurches maim the notion of the healthy self-defined individual soul, borne witness to the inexplicable success of Ashlee Simpson and Mariah Carey while trying, every single day, to allay the shuddering effect of Tom Cruise and Paris Hilton and the Olsen twins with ointments and salves and fine single-malt scotch. Like granny used to say "A whore can become a slut - only problem is: once you're a slut you can't charge o more."

Against the backdrop of a leering and spiritually depraved leadership, I have witnessed the death of poetry. As my friend Rob Brezny points out in his outstandingly odd and delicious book of divine conspiracy, "Pronoia," an estimated 37 million Americans take antidepressants. By the time they hit age 17, 78 percent of teenage girls are unhappy with their bodies. The United States is the biggest arms dealer in the world, by a long shot. Half of all war casualties are civilians caught in the crossfire. And so on. [Drum beat heard in the background.]

I have watched the rise of the morally bankrupt Christian fundamentalist mind-set in America with equal parts disgust and sadness and bemusement, all overlaid with a general sense that just about everything these people do is pretty much the exact opposite of what Jesus had in mind. Which is exactly what makes them so dangerous. A-FRICKIN'-MEN

I have seen the big pharmcos work like intestinal worms to create a nation of jittery and confused prescription-drug addicts, Big Auto refuse to improve mpg or cop to the overall abusive idiocy of the monster SUV, heard the president mutter the actual words, "We do not torture," as the United States quickly becomes, in its global actions and disregard for all things humanitarian, little better than the fundamentalist terrorists it claims to despise. You know, I have the same feeling.

And lo, it is bleak and nasty and gray as death's own gum disease.

On the other hand, I have seen new voices of protest being born straight out of the pious machinery of fundamentalist ignorance. I have seen the coolly blasphemous alt-spirituality segment of the bookstore explode and flourish and make a calm mockery of the belief that godhood is somehow unattainable to calm and open-hearted people right here, right now.

Community is flourishing in new and astounding forms, via 10 thousand blogs and 10 million photo-sharing Web pages and countless bizarre blinking winking communication devices, our frayed human interconnections constantly regenerating in new and unexpected ways, like nerve endings after a traumatic accident. Fast & furious.

And total lack of work ethics. Talk about whores....

Uncle Z smiles.


posted by Uncle Zoloft at 6:40 AM 0 comments

Friday, December 23, 2005

MERRYHAPPYCHIRSMAKWANAZKA Y'all




posted by Uncle Zoloft at 1:27 PM 0 comments

Thursday, December 22, 2005

I just Love This!

Click pic to enlarge

posted by Uncle Zoloft at 8:16 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Fascism Anyone?

Shout out to Bubba for sending this one:
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed
to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free _expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

posted by Uncle Zoloft at 6:03 PM 0 comments

Friday, December 09, 2005

ahhh good times

Jesus Bans 'Christian' Group
Shocking announcement sends militant Focus on the Family organization into crazed tailspin

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

HUGE SHOUT OUT TO MR. MORFORD - Uncle Z
In an astonishing but not completely unexpected announcement, Jesus H. Christ, vice president and CFO of All That Is Inc., appeared today on a large tortilla at a roadside taco stand in Zacatecas, Mexico, to announce that, effective immediately, the pseudo-Christian group Focus on the Family, led by Dr. James Dobson and best known for its blazing hatred of gays and its fear of glimpsing the human female nipple during nationally televised sporting events, is effectively banned from His Divine Beneficence.

"What happened was, the heavens and all spirits of goodness, along with Buddha and Shiva and Allah and Kali and a few others, well, we were having some margaritas and playing poker and tossing around recent headlines, when Allah chimed in that this Focus on the Family group -- a real scab on my big toe for years, I gotta tell you -- well, they just decided to yank all their accounts from a bank over the bank's support of gay rights," said Jesus, dressed in black Diesel jeans, Hugo Boss motorcycle boots and a snug tank top featuring a large OM symbol across the chest.

"J-Dog," as he is known to his friends, was referring, of course, to the recent story about how the militant, Colorado-based "Christian" group has just pulled all its accounts from Wells Fargo Bank after learning that the bank had donated a small sum of money to gay rights causes, including GLAAD, a sum totaling about $50,000, or about one-tenth of what Wells Fargo gave to the GOP last year.

The Christ, apparently, had had enough.

"This is what I realized: Rampant homophobia, ignorance of sex, derision of women's rights, a decided love of tepid dogmatic sameness at the expense of the luminosity and uniqueness of the individual human soul -- it was all just too much," Jesus said, this time appearing as a curiously shaped oil stain on a freeway underpass in Saragossa, Spain. "Then the bank thing happened and it was the straw that broke the Mary's back."

It was, apparently, the right response. "Totally in the moment," said Buddha, nodding vigorously in agreement. "It's about time," Vishnu sighed, painting his nails beet red and lighting some Nag Champa incense. "It's decisive and it sends a message," agreed Kali, counting her poker winnings. "You guys have any hummus?" Allah muttered, rifling through Christ's well-stocked fridge and not really paying attention.

"A slight ban is definitely in order," Christ continued, calmly, now appearing in a pile of instant mashed potatoes in a truck stop in Bowling Green, Ky., where his visage appeared to be weeping, but which Jesus said was merely caused by all the onions he'd been chopping to make his famed "Holy Christ!" hot salsa for the Seraphim Christmas office party.

"Nothing serious, just maybe three, four thousand years wherein these Focus on the Family nutballs and especially this hateful Dobson fellow shall receive only sporadic blessings and deferred prayer responses and will have to go all the way to the back of the line, behind Dick Cheney and Tim LaHaye and Mel Gibson, to await salvation."

"Hell, I still love them all. Even Dobson," the One added, flashing his trademark dazzling, compassionate grin. "I just don't like them very much."

When the news reached Focus on the Family's Colorado Springs headquarters, stunned members were seen running into walls and bashing their foreheads with large Bibles and ramming their Toyota Corollas and Ford pickups into each other and muttering incoherent lines from "The Passion of the Christ" and popping Prozac like M&M's.

"Where are the Ken dolls?! Someone get to the dungeon and make sure my Ken doll collection is safe!" screamed James Dobson himself, emerging from a secret room in a fuchsia leotard and launching into a bizarre rant no one could quite understand. Reporters seeking comment could only look at each other in stunned silence, wishing they could be in a bar somewhere.

In related news, the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association, another right-wing, anti-gay Christian group that allegedly pressured Ford Motor Co. into yanking much of its advertising from upscale gay publications, has, apparently, accidentally banned itself.

"Someone who is no longer in the organization had the bright idea that we should ban any American company or group that supported the outright ignorance of Christ's true message," sighed AMA chairman Donald Wildmon, chugging from a large bottle of Red Bull and stroking the hairless cat in his lap and making a strange hissing noise with his tongue. "Hell, it sounded great at the 'Harry Potter' book-burning rally. But then again, most everyone was buzzed on spiked Kool-Aid and Kumbaya pie.

"Turns out, when all votes were counted, the group that most needed banning, besides the Catholic church and Dobson's clan, was us. Apparently, we have no real clue as to what Christ truly stood for. Who knew?"

Effective immediately, the AFA's ban on itself means its members will no longer be able support or endorse anything it says or does, until further notice from itself.

"It makes shopping, like, totally impossible," said Beth-Ann Binderbottom, mother of nine and AFA member for the past 17 years and devout watcher of "Touched by an Angel" and committed scourer of all live radio and TV programming for any trace of female nipples, curse words or Jessica Simpson's butt.

"Due to the ban on myself, I now I have to buy the exact opposite of everything I would normally buy," she lamented. "What the gosh-golly heck am I supposed to do with all these green vegetables, Tom Robbins books, bottles of wine and hot porn DVDs?"

Christ, who will be in negotiations with the lords of the underworld next week about what can be done about Jerry Falwell, summarized it this way: "Hell, at the root of it, we're all pagans," JC said with a wink, from a lovely pattern of bark on an old-growth sycamore in a heavily wooded forest somewhere in Bavaria.

posted by Uncle Zoloft at 11:42 AM 0 comments