For Those Who Haven't Found it Somewhere else Yet: The Emancipwnage of Colonel Anderson

"As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire."


Pardon the archaic slang, but what else would you call it?

Fuck You New York: This is Our Baby

The Reuben sandwich is a hot sandwich of layered meat, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese, with a dressing. These are grilled between slices of pumpernickel or rye. The meat is either corned beef or pastrami, and the dressing is either Russian or Thousand Island dressing. Several variants exist.


The correct sauce, by the way, is 3/5ths thousand island dressing and 2/5ths of the most profoundly brown and spicy mustard you can find. 

The Reuben is your mother.  It is your God. 

On a related note: Why do sweet pickles exist; anywhere, at all? How is it  not universally obvious that once dill pickles were invented there was absolutely nothing further to be done except to make them more fucking dill?  The evil in this world man, the casual willingness to destroy beautiful things, it's fucking tragic.

Top 10 FC's

1. Real Madrid
2. Bayern Munich
3. AC Milan
4. Barcelona
5. Benfica
6. Basel
7. Manchester United
8. Paris St. Germain
9. Manchester City
10 Juventus

In All Seriousness

"Instead of a credible assessment of the state of the union, which is not good, the president delivered a slightly toned down campaign speech. We heard more of the same about how “the rich” aren’t paying their “fair share” in taxes.

There was an unserious nod to government overspending to which he has massively contributed." - Cal Thomas

 

This quote can't really be said to be the heart of Thomas's column.  In fact it can't really be said to have a heart.  There's none of the fire that Thomas shows when he's warning us about the looming gay Muslim apocalypse.  This is no more than boilerplate opposition from the opposition and that's fine.  A man needs to make his bread, and in this case the use of 'unserious' was just a snarl word. Unseriousness is bad.  Obama is bad.  Still it got me thinking about the authoritarian concept of 'seriousness'. 

'I know this may sound harsh, but...' This is a common formula to begin a statement and you've probably heard it at some point in your life, and it's just as artificial and coy as most formulas.  Generally the people who say such things believe that what they're saying is true because it is harsh.  And they generally consider any position based on some softness; humility, compassion, empathy; to be fanciful, naive and 'unserious' not because of any facts it may disregard but precisely because it is humble, empathetic, or compassionate.  A true, fatherly leader must assume that the solution to any problem is one of condemnation, deprevation, struggle, and punishment.  For other people that is, this goes without saying. 

 

As a side note, there is nothing innately good about seriousness.  In fact a posture of infinite, unwavering seriousness can make you appear to be the perfect opposite of wisdom and maturity.

 

 

Something I Dreamt Up In The Shower the Other Day

The Callista Gingrich Rule:  Those who cultivate a look of perfect normality are bound to appear freakish to the actually normal. 

This was a passing thought that I had some days ago, and I was reminded of it again when I saw this equally disturbing picture of famed human termite couple the Duggars. 

Superficiality aside, I'm honestly happy that megamom here has managed to keep her teeth healthy, in spite of all the calcium she has ever ingested going straight to her milk factories.  I hope her good luck continues, so that when she's seventy years old she'll be able to take a step foward without shattering everything below the knee like glass. 

Damn People

Look, if you want to worship patriarchy, then fine.  Just stop beating around the bush  and go for the real dope. 

Bring on The Rat Bastard, If That's Who You Want

During the last presidential race, I read a Nate Silver post on the supposed 'Palin effect'.  He pointed out that while McCain's choice of her as her running mate was meant to fire up the conservative 'base' and almost certainly would, it would just as certainly fire up the liberal base as well; because her psuedofolkishness and proud ignorance reminded us of GW. Bush; the great devil who both ruined the nation and unified the left in a way that no one would have ever thought possible before it happened.  The apperance of Palin on the stage murdered whatever chance of complacancy on the left there may have been;.  Everyone from the center-right leftwards was hell for leather bound to not be governed by the likes of that again. And in rousing the right-wing base the GOP discovered that; in spite of their famous delusion of seeing themselves as the eternal American norm, this base was actually just as badly outnumbered by people with sanity and lives as every other hardcore political base. 

This sort of mistake is one that chauvinists are essentially prone to.  They are generally fixated with the idea of being the only people on Earth who are not cowards, the only ones with real courage of conviction.  They habitually assure each other that they're beliefs are so obviously correct that even there opponents secretly know themselves to be wrong and are acting out of some secret evil agenda.   They also have a lust for conflict that is often slatteringly intense and will justify this lust by telling themselves that longing for battle is the only alternative to helplessness in the face of attack. 

And so you have the differing narratives, in how the two opposing parties go about the game of wrangling votes.  Republicans seek to rally the base, Democrats seek to win over independents.  Much of this to be sure is a matter of demographics.  (Dyed in the wool conservatives still outnumber died in the wool liberals; at least as long as the post-civil rights, Reagan thermidor generation continues to walk among us. )  But it is also largely a matter of mindset and personality.   Democrats view winning in democracy as a matter of winning you over.  Republicans just want to beat.... them, you, us.  Line it up in the Woody Hayes T and shove it down your throat to show you who's in charge. 

That seems to be the problem that Mitt Romney has with the 'Base'.  He's a flip flopper, a politician acting like a politician, heaven forbid.  He'll give them what they want; policy wise, but it's long past obvious now that they've never really cared about that.  What they want is a Big Man to reaffirm the social supremacy of their own identity.  That's what the various alternatives-of-the-month to Romney have offered them.   Newt Gingrich seems now poised to cement himself as The alternative because he makes this offer in a more theatrical, invigorating way than anyone else.  It has always been so.  No one has ever been better at using the language of God and apple pie to offer nihilism.  The appeal of Gingrich, both as the old Speaker and the current presidential candidate, is that he offers war.  War against modernity; war against them, war that is somehow, through some force of Real American will, both constantly triumphant and never ending. 

For nearly four years now talk radio has assured 'The Base' that the way to avenge the humiliation of losing their sacred entitled power was to rally; themselves.  Stand strong on the bedrock, non-negotiable conservative positions (all of them, naturally) find a candidate who will stand strong and fight, and America will come back home to you where she belongs.  Because everyone knows that your enemies are weaklings and some unnatural failure to really fight on your part is the only possible reason you could ever lose.  So simply display this power of yours to its utmost and all of those urban smart-aleks and welfare-sucking brown people will cower back in their drug dens and coffee houses where we belong.  This is what Gingrich offers. 

Romney, to be sure, still has the advantage.  Yet it is looking more and more like old Newt is the one that conservatives really want, the one who rallies the base.  He's been described on youtube as 'the only candidate who can beat Obama' and other things among those lines.  Yet just like in the days of Palinmania the common clay of the new West seem to be forgetting that we liberals have our base too.  And let no one doubt for a second that we too would be just as motivated as they by the emergence of this amatuer Nazi charlatan pig as the Republican nominee for president.  We lefties tend to pride ourselves on not being hateful.  Still we have our human failings, and among the prominent living figures of the American right I can think of five who are truly, viscerally hated by American liberals; Cheney, Bush, Limbaugh, Kristol,  and Newt Goddamn Gingrich. If you dare provoke us with the spectre of this man who has poisoned our discourse and personally slandered the name of any fellow American who doesn't happen to be Republican  then I tell you that we will fight to keep this strutting capon from ever holding anything like real power ever again and I tell you that we will win. If this outhouse parasite does indeed turn out to be who you want then by all means bring him the fuck on. If you want to use this election to wage the culture war that you're too stupid to realize you already lost long ago then I say Glory Glory Alleluia, motherfuckers.

Second Drunkest State in The Union

Wisconsin beat us out, as they do in everything.  But Lincoln did beat Madtown, and several outstate market towns finished ahead of any number of supposedly debauched college burgs.  North Platte, alas, doesn't appear to be in the top twenty five, though I'd chock this up to a failure on the CDC's part to take their proper measure of the place. 

I've had issues with alcohol myself, truth be told, and to say the least, though you may be glad to know that I am currently eight days sober.  And I've been thinking on spending the extra money on... some art films maybe.  Mostly though I think I'll be saving the money for a journey somewhere. Somewhere interesting, the kind of place where people, you know, drink a lot. 

Footie Top 10

Just some minor deck chair rearrainging. 

1. Real Madrid
2. Barcelona
3. Bayern Munich
4. AC Milan
5. Benfica
6. Basel
7. Manchester United
8. Paris St. Germain
9. Juventus
10 Manchester City

And Now, Only in Nebraska

Cure your hangover with a dose of Cannibal Corpsesque blood orgasm.


We're pretty hardcore out here man.

Here In Nebraska Again: Something Much Manlier

Cougar hunting!  Fuck yeah bitch!!


Louden knows his bill will be criticized by animal rights groups.
"My answer is 'You want to see them face-to-face?'" he said."I've got a granddaughter ... and I don't want her to see oneface-to-face. If you have a mountain lion in your area, you are notnecessarily at the top of the food chain."

This may seem like a hair-splitting gripe, but the reason senator Louden is able to even conceive of such a thing as hunting mountain lions is the near-infinite variety of killing machines available to us humans.  So in other words, yeah, we're still quite indisputably at the top of the food chain.  I mean even if you came across five or six pumas working as a tag team a basic pistol-grip twelve gauge would be all you need to preserve man-ape hegemony.  Now, far be it for me to go off on an animal rights-rant, but it seems that LeRoy Louden of Ellsworth considers anything outside of his direct control and holding a level of power that's even comparable to his own to be a mortal threat that must be destroyed.  And this man, with this attitude, has a vote in a democratic law-making body.  Funny that.

 

As for the question of whether I (or whoever ethereal 'you') want to see them face-to-face.  My answer to that is; yes!  Of course I do!  How much of a cowardly dullard do you have to be to not want to see such a terrific thing?!  And nice move hiding your own fear behind your grandaughter there jackass.  Not to get personal here; but are you really going to allow me, long-haired city boy, to be less afraid of God's own true country than you; Mr. responsible owner and steward of the land Real American Cowboy? Pathetic.  

 

Still, for anyone who feels that cougar hunting is something they simply must do; here's your rimshot. 

Final College Football Poll: Top 25 Special

1. Alabama
2. Oklahoma State
3. L.S.U.
4. Oregon
5. Michigan
6. U.S.C
7. Boise State
8. Houston
9. Michigan State
10 Arkansas
11 Stanford
12 Wisconsin
13 South Carolina
14 West Virginia
15 Virginia Tech
16 T.C.U
17 Southern Miss
18 Baylor
19 Oklahoma
20 Clemson
21 Kansas State
22 Georgia
23 Cincinnati
24 No. Illinois
25 Florida State

Here In Nebraska

There's a bill in the unicameral to declare non-solicited kisses to be a form of assault.  This, of course, is nothing but the most trifling PC nonsense from bloodless liberals who hate romance and are out to stop lively bad boys from being boys.  And of course the men who say that the loudest are the same ones who would most loudly declare their right to punch another man who kissed them without permission.  Because that's what 'politically correct' means, you see.  It means being suddenly asked to show human regard towards your lessers after years of being assured that you would never have to. 

In Related News

Happy birthday to the man who looked like he was seconds from dropping dead on stage in 1974, and turned 65 today. 

The lesson here is that if you're going to abuse yourself, do it without any psuedo bluesy self-pity, and God will grant you good luck. 

Breaking News: Obama is The Space Invader, Will be Rock and Roll Bitch for You

Two former participants in the CIA’s Mars visitation program of the early 1980’s have confirmed that U.S. President Barack H. Obama was enrolled in their Mars training class in 1980 and was among the young Americans from the program who they later encountered on the Martian surface after reaching Mars via “jump room.”

Chrisma Woman Writes Next Mars Volta Album for Them

HEALINGS FOR MUSICAL SCHIZOPHRENIA

"If a person hears music with voices in their head this is not the usual schizophrenia.  This is musical schizophrenia made by Moslems.  Moslems that plays the synthesizer soon forgets to eat and sleep.  Over 90% of Moslems self inflict after doing away with some Americans."

"What more do we have today?  State 'Divine I care for weak persons' over and over.  State Divine at the beginning of every sentence and you'll have your own sweet statements and problem solving statements.  State 'divine cracks every bio' over and over.  Put white crosses on entryways and white crosses with your name on it."

"Put honey outside the ear hole and the infestation jumps out.  Put honey on the head and they lick and leave with sweeter statements.    Use yogurt by mouth, on fingertips, on scalp and as lotion.  Yogurt heals a wound dream.  If another person has a wound dream put yogurt on your body and they heal." 

ELECTRIC RICKSHAWS

"Fifteen years ago we suggested ........."
Actually, never mind the full quote, ELECTRIC RICKSHAWS: J.B.

 SPACESHIP EARTH

"We all live in a little spaceship earth. 
Two men are in a room.  If you hurt me I might hurt you back. 
There are more ways to relate than to hurt back.  The second person can shield himself.  A second person can run away.  The second person can talk the first person out of hurting again.  Would you like to make a friend today?  Everybody needs more friends."

NUCLEAR RODS ON THE MOON

"Let's put nuclear rods on the moon.  Since language changes from century to century add a skull and bones around the area so all visitors for up to two thousand years will understand where not to explore. 

GREEN PARTY

"Mr. Ralph Nader there is something worse than breakfast food in your marijuana.  Why pollute your brain when you can be a lot smarter." 

So, To Be Clear

Six months (At least) of endless hype, oceans of ink and hyper text given to hyperventillating about the all-determining importance of poll swings last June or October towards a party convention this August and a general election this November, all this epic importance attatched to the votes of one hundred and twenty thousand people, (about the same as you'll get in the Lincoln mayorial race,) in a nation of three hundred and ten million, and all of this while actual sitting office-holders, including the sitting president, who all may or may not be voted out in the event that, you know, is still quite a hell of a long ways away; were all actually making decisions and doing basic public-interest stuff. 

Right.

And for The New Year

I'm actually feeling pretty chill, so let's start things with the first soccer poll of the 11-12 season.

1. Barcelona
2. Real Madrid
3. AC Milan
4. Bayern Munich
5. Benfica
6. Basel
7. Manchester United
8. Paris St. Germain
9. Juventus
10 Manchester City

Contenders:  Zenit St. Petersburg, Boca Juniors, Borussia Dortmund