Storytime

Elektra kicked K and myself out of “Storytime” this past Monday. She told me that I could go and look for books? I wouldn’t say she was embarrassed but she’s getting so independent. Growing up is never easy. I try to hold on to things that were and I wonder what’s to come. I need to grow through life.

This is it, what...

Everything I Do

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

You gotta love the "I'm Utah/I got multiple bitches" line...

Haiku Reviews

Persepolis
Life shaped by struggle
We can see “US” in this film
Comes to a quick end

Juno
Manages to charm
Snarky after school special
Works on its own terms

Hot Like Rorschach

Last week in the SL City Weekly Numbs were featured as one of the “19 things we’re loving about local music right now” and took 3rd in the category “Best Hip Hop”. It is an honor to be recognized by the community we love. This whole music thing is a blessing. Read more about the brew-ha-ha here…

http://www.slweekly.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=1400B575-14D1-13A2-9F6806AA26015FA4
http://www.slweekly.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=13EEA940-14D1-13A2-9FA68C7CB2C5B29C

We are putting the finishing touches on the new Rotten Musicians disc tonight. It’s great to hear what feelings sound like.

Peace-DAG!
PS. Dope pic of Rorschach huh?

The Corner

Parole violation. It probably wasn’t the end anyone wanted. He shot himself and took his own life. I had to get Elektra out of the area before we could hear anything. Today, this all went down less than a block away from where I rest my head. Crazy stuff.

He who fights with monsters might take care unless he becomes a monster. If you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

DAG!

Get Tang? Get Seizures...WHAT?

The Good Trick

A good trick to remember a name is you look the person in the eyes long enough to register their color…green or brown or blue…It’s called pattern interrupt. It stops you forgetting the way you always would. It’s the last thing you are.

I LOL'ed

FISA FEAR

Just Words?

GROWL!

No, this isn't about Operation Mockingbird, whereby the CIA put journalists and news personnel on its payroll in order to lie to the American people. This is about a more recent disgrace -- how the military has been able to spread its psyops and propaganda to a more-than-willing "press". It has been argued that shadowy intelligence agencies are pumping out black propaganda to manipulate public opinion…and that the media simply swallow it wholesale.

I came across an article from the Guardian (UK) and pull excerpts from it…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/04/comment.pressandpublishing

*For the first time in human history, there is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it. The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which now afflicts the production of our news. I've spent the last two years researching a book about falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media. The "Zarqawi letter" which made it on to the front page of The New York Times in February 2004 was one of a sequence of highly suspect documents which were said to have been written either by or to Zarqawi and which were fed into news media.This material is being generated, in part, by intelligence agencies who continue to work without effective oversight; and also by a new and essentially benign structure of "strategic communications" which was originally designed by doves in the Pentagon and Nato who wanted to use subtle and non-violent tactics to deal with Islamist terrorism but whose efforts are poorly regulated and badly supervised with the result that some of its practitioners are breaking loose and engaging in the black arts of propaganda.*

We are now victims of our own government. In so many ways.

And how many "news" stories are we fed which read, somewhere in them, "a military spokesperson said ..." or "the Pentagon reports ...."

*The Pentagon has now designated "information operations" as its fifth "core competency" alongside land, sea, air and special forces. Since October 2006, every brigade, division and corps in the US military has had its own "psyop" element producing output for local media. This military activity is linked to the State Department's campaign of "public diplomacy" which includes funding radio stations and news websites.*

And psyops is now such a big part of the government's operations that they're starting to farm it out to civilian corporations, I mean, those other than CNN and here’s a great example from CNN…

* No safe way for the U.S. to leave Iraq, experts warn*

Uh, whose experts, exactly? Why, CNN's very own:

*A rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops would hurt America's image and hand al Qaeda and other terror groups a propaganda victory that the United States is only a "paper tiger," CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen said. *

And in light of the recent FISA embarrassment, there's this:

*Republicans pushed "bogus" terror threat to expand FISA*

Nice...we can depend on our Democrats to keep the checks and balances in order! Wait .... oh right. We've been betrayed by all of them, Repub and Dem alike. What country is this again? I guess the Democrats who voted to protect the corporations figured we'd have a short memory.

I suppose the real question is this: Seeing as how Operation Mockingbird was the real deal…why is anyone assuming that's ancient history and is somehow over with? Why would anyone assume, in an era when evil little henchmen like Rove, Cheney and Rumsfeld finally indeed managed to take over the American government, that such programs would have been eliminated? Our experience shows that these jokers only improve their techniques and consolidate their holds on power.

And now this, where it seems they don't even have to pay the members of the press anymore, the press simply reports whatever the Pentagon tells them to report. Maybe they're all on the payroll now, maybe it's that insidious. Maybe it's just that all the cool kids are stenographers for the military psyops divisions. Who knows? What matters is that we're being lied to every day, and there's nobody to report on THAT. Except us.

Peace-DAG!

Flying

If you want to learn to fly one day you must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance. One cannot just fly into flying.

It's All About...

4 for 4 over the weekend and a Grammy? I’d have to say he’s on a roll. It also looks like an inconvenient feud is going on between Al Gore and the Clintons. Gore must be in a somewhat satisfying position knowing that an endorsement of Obama would likely be the final nail in the coffin of the Clinton campaign. Not to mention, Colin Powell? BTW…OBAMA GIRL is wack!

Peace-DAG!

Amibition/Insanity

...Ambition is when you follow your dreams. Insanity is when they follow you...

40 days

I need to prepare better. Lent is here and I’m going to offer an olive branch or an almsgiving to my neighbors. I’m not the best Catholic. I can count the number of times I have attended church the last couple of years on two hands. I’m more of a Nihilist these days. I’m not at the “God Is Dead” point but lately it’s a philosophy of antipathy. With that being said…for the next 40 days I’m going to try and shut down my cynicism. This is going to be a test for myself. A battle for my human nature. The reason I’m posting this up on my blog and not keeping it close to the vest is that I want YOU to call me on it. When you hear my usual faith in nothing tone…tell me to stop it. When you listen to my propaganda of sarcasm…tell me to fuck off. It’s that simple. Something about nothing. RIP…Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Cheers and good zen ahead…DAG!

Meet Michele Obama...

I have to admit I have not really stopped to listen to Michelle Obama speak. Although she has spoken at several events and is always in the news, I simply never stopped and noticed. But after I attended the “Stand For Change” rally today in Salt Lake City I came away VERY impressed. Room #255 @ the Salt Palace was energized and filled (probably 800 peeps or more?). Words that come to mind…smart, humble, gracious, strong, powerful, professional and emphathetic. Like I needed to be sold anymore than I already am. There IS no other choice for myself.

Peace-DAG!
Ps...this is as close as I got to her. The secret service guy to the right was giving me the stink eye. Gotta love camera phones.

Beast Of The East

Enjoy it. Magical rides and unexpected championships like this don’t come around often. Thanks to the Giants for one of the best Superbowls ever. The last drive by Eli Manning was inspiring and that catch by Tyree was SICK! Oh yeah, not to mention a HELL of a pass rush all game long. This myth ended the right way…with the more motivated warriors claiming a trophy from the gods who were reduced to nothing but mere mortals.

Incredible- DAG!