The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

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Post-trauma Disorder: none dare call it conspiracy?

By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 11/03/2015 - 10:20pm |

If you want to start a fight, ask a bunch of Americans whether 9/11 was a conspiracy. Most will say no. If you then note that 19-20 people working together is by definition a conspiracy, they'll get pissed and say they thought you meant "government conspiracy". Which is not what they thought, since we don't know what individual gov workers from the FAA or INS or FBI might have helped the hijackers, eg who let them through the airport with boxcutters or who helped them scope out security. What they really mean is "not a HIGH government conspiracy" or some coordinated renegade group of spooks, no Ollie North and gang.

African Diaspora series?

By PeraclesPlease on Thu, 10/15/2015 - 3:47am |

A group is doing a Kickstarter for a crime series on the African Diaspora. I'm curious how folks think, whether an exploitive piece on Africans, a voyeuristic fearmongering piece on violence, refugee porn that takes off where Syrian & Libyan refugees stop, or a needed sociology study/angle on an interesting demographic. Benghazi moves to Ferguson or your weekly "The Good Lie"  movie spinoff?

Anyone have thoughts on this?

Documenting Evil: The Auschwitz Album

By PeraclesPlease on Mon, 07/20/2015 - 11:13am |

As part of the 70th commemoration of the end of WWII, I went to an exhibit of the Auschwitz Album. While movie directors have done an amazing job re-creating these awful scenes throughout the years, the actual photos of unphotogenic, unmadeup distressed masses being herded around as they struggle to manage their few belongings along with their friends & relatives is heartbreaking.

What's more astounding is this seminal horrific event came this close to having 0 photographic evidence even at this late date in the history of photography - only by accident did one of the inmates stumble across this unauthorized photo album a few hundred miles away. 

Identity: Caitlyn Jenner = Rachel Dolezal?

By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 06/16/2015 - 10:09am |

So perhaps I don't get inclusiveness, but I'm not sure I understand why a man can feel he's really a woman and we encourage his transition to she - but a woman says she feels she's black and has certainly played the role for a number of years, but in this case it's a scandal.

Hillary thru the Looking Glass

By PeraclesPlease on Sun, 04/26/2015 - 9:21am |

2 items I saw today re: how the media prism will focus on Hillary actions in different ways.

In #1, Ted Lipien notes that the blind Chinese dissident had distinctly commended Hillary while expressing disappointment with the Obama Administration - the former part left out of the Politico version as Voice of America sat on the translation.

Dr. Quinn's Koestler-like Energy Future Shock

By PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/17/2015 - 7:48am |

We had an interesting guest appearance by Quinn re: the slide to renewables in perhaps 30-40 years.

Presuming this all goes as (un)planned and coal/oil/gas can mostly be phased out, it begs some interesting questions, what with nearly limitless almost-free energy (& electric cars, super-grids & presumably electric planes to go along with it)

1) what happens to our global warming concerns as we replace fossil fuels with non-CO2 & non-heat producing alternatives?

Venezuela a US Security Threat? Who knew?

By PeraclesPlease on Tue, 03/10/2015 - 1:37am |

Extending the Axis of Evil to a 4th Dimension, President Obama declared Venezuela a security threat because it has nuclear weapons  threatens our borders  hacks our computers  beheads American captives  spies on European leaders  occupied a peninsula assassinated opposition leaders is mean to protesters. Observers are unsure whether this meant to slow government moves towards socialism, or to get Maduro to supply troops to fight ISIS, something the other members of the evil club are doing.

Being Bibi's Bitch

By PeraclesPlease on Wed, 03/04/2015 - 2:41am |

Wow, simply wow. I was going to title this "The Founding Fathers on Israel" (and briefly "Bibi's Poodle"), since obviously those great men had to foresee the unbreakable bonds we would have with Israel, and recognize the already evident shared values and common ideals.

And even though Herzl & Co. had courted the Ottomans, Brits and Russia/Soviet Union for this Big Brother role,  it's important that she finally settled on us, the U-S of effin' A. Let's not bicker over who she slept with on the way to the altar - the important thing is she settled on us - and for that reason, she's always been true.

Regime Change and Precedent

By PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/01/2015 - 8:13am |

After all the screaming about Bush's botched trumped-up war in Iraq, looks like the left is getting its own takedown in Libya - with the rise of ISIS, inability to form a stable government, oil wealth not covering all the expenses - our over-optimistic fantasies of the future by overthrowing Qaddafi seem horridly misguided 3 years later. Somalia on the Mediterranean is our new dystopian future. After pride comes the fall.

A Message to You, Rudy

By PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/28/2015 - 3:14am |

Rudy Giuliano is the son of an organized crime enforcer for loan sharks and gamblers who spent time in Sing Sing for felony assault and gambling - as the great Casey Stengel said, "you can look it up".

How Giuliano then gets to lecture Obama on his Hawaiian upbringing is anyone's guess, but yes, Rudy - Obama wasn't raised like you - his idea of "Family" doesn't equal "Mafia".

Pass it on.

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Superpowers
Defies gravity Can spit really far Almost touch my toes Can cut a fly's legs off with a beer cap from 20 paces Know how to say useless stuff and prattle on in a dozen languages Don't know when to shut up
Favorite Quotes
To be for or against the Plague, it's much the same thing. Fiddledee, how a body shure do get around - just 2 weeks ago I was in Mississippi and now I'm all the way to Tennessee... Eat or Be Eaten Better to be pissed off than pissed on.
Biography
Born in swaddling clothes (designer, of course) at the confluence of big waters, my first recorded words were "Dad, can I have the keys to the car?" Raised a Southern Pedestrian, my musical talents were recognized at an early age, leading to my being exiled to the shed out back with a stack of books that became my eddykayshun - advanced readin', writin' & ritmytick, creating a major quandary of "what will I do, oh what will I do?" (Gunslinger) As an old black man advised in song, "You Gotta Move", so move I did, traveling the byways sideways even a lot of driveways, picking up sticks and psychological tics, even movin' to Beverlee through a quaint misunderstanding of the seriousness of TV series, until finally I blew up so big the carry nation incarnation tarnation couldn't hold me no more, so I fixed my sights on yonder sitar, and like Queequeg and Paul Bowles and one of those abducted kids by the Pied Piper of Hamelin, I ventured forth to the larger world, pickin' and grinnin', doin' me some reckonin' and naughts from naughts, occasionally rightin', building me some buildings and wiring and just trying to understand the babble comin' out of people's mouths and heads, I finally ended up in what Rummy quaintly calls "New Europe", which ain't so new from what I sees, but that pit in my stomach from lack-of-moving-sickness finally disappeared, and instead I sit behind a whopping big desk stacked with missives from all the chiefs with big whampum around the world telling me "what's going on". Which seems like a load of boolshit to me, but I guess that's what keeps me busy and entertained now, separatin' the weeds from the chapstick. So my name is Perry Keys, or Peracles to you, and since my mammy always said, "say please and thank you", I added the please, but I'm holdin' back on that thankee until I feel you've earned it. But do welcome, and I hope we's a gonna have a real good time. It all starts with, "I wuz born a poor young white chile livin' in the South..." and we cycle through again, like Nietzsche and his infernal regurgence. So enjoy, and let's spin a spell...

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