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Cultural discovery!
A link at TAC sent me here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/may/07/daniil-kharms-strangely-funny-russian-genius/
Yada, yada, I thought, if some literary critic is saying it’s magnificent humor, I probably won’t like it, especially coming from an (assumed) affluent and comfort-infested American puffball (I have just discovered this word actually exists!).
Which in any case sent me googling for Daniil Kharms, which sent me here: http://www.sevaj.dk/kharms/kharmseng.htm
I clicked on the first one, seemed good enough, no?
It’s magnificent, I loved it. When you can write, you can write. What a criminal, tragic loss.
Symphony no. 2
Anton Mikhailovich spat, said “yuck”, spat again, said “yuck” again, spat again, said “yuck” again and left. To Hell with him. Instead, let me tell about Ilya Pavlovich.
Ilya Pavlovich was born in 1893 in Constantinople. When he was still a boy, his family moved to St. Petersburg, and there he graduated from the German School on Kirchnaya Street. Then he worked in some shop; then he did something else; and when the Revolution began, he emigrated. Well, to Hell with him. Instead, let me tell about Anna Ignatievna.
But it is not so easy to tell about Anna Ignatievna. Firstly, I know almost nothing about her, and secondly, I have just fallen of my chair, and have forgotten what I was about to say. So let me instead tell about myself.
I am tall, fairly intelligent; I dress prudently and tastefully; I don’t drink, I don’t bet on horses, but I like ladies. And ladies don’t mind me. They like when I go out with them. Serafima Izmaylovna has invited me home several times, and Zinaida Yakovlevna also said that she was always glad to see me. But I was involved in a funny incident with Marina Petrovna, which I would like to tell about. A quite ordinary thing, but rather amusing. Because of me, Marina Petrovna lost all her hair – got bald like a baby’s bottom. It happened like this: Once I went over to visit Marina Petrovna, and bang! she lost all her hair. And that was that.
Loved it.
Here’s another one:
An encounter
On one occasion a man went off to work and on the way he met another man who, having bought a loaf of Polish bread, was on his way home.
And that’s just about all there is to it.
Update May 3, 2015
I have to say that after reading several of his short stories, that some are a bit violent – and stupidly so. So those I didn’t like.
You’ll find lots of them here:
Guaranteed that more than one will make you smile!
p.s. I had no idea he had a French first name (except for the spelling of Henry)!
p.s.2 I hate to have to write a pro-active explanation to everything, like already foreseeing that an idiot will come along and point out that “Henry” with an “y” is not French…
I’ve recently discovered this writer/editor from Ireland: Brendan O’Neill
Here’s his latest article. We pretty much have noticed some of the same core dynamics about liberals and the homosexuality agenda. He has also been writing (professionally) for some time. Do a search on the web, you’ll find many good articles.
From Ireland to Indiana, the spread of gay-marriage groupthink
Why the campaign for same-sex hitching is so censorious and intolerant.
8 April 2015
To see how straitjacketed the debate about gay marriage has become, look no further than Ireland.
There, on 22 May, there will be a referendum, with voters asked to say Yes or No to amending the Irish Constitution so that marriage will be redefined as a union between ‘two persons without distinction as to their sex’. Sounds good, right? An opportunity for an actual electorate to have a debate and have its say on the future of marriage? Not so fast.
The run-up to the referendum has been about as far from a fair or open debate as it’s possible to get. One side in the debate – the side that is critical of gay marriage – is demonised daily, treated virtually as heretics, almost as criminals. It’s accused of causing psychological harm, branded as ‘hate speakers’, and frequently forced to make public apologies simply for expressing its belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman. And as a writer for the Irish Independent says, ‘It’s not a debate if one side can’t speak’. The public discussion before the Irish referendum has not been a debate, she says – it’s been ‘a Two Minutes Hate’ against anyone who doesn’t think gay marriage is the greatest idea ever.
Pretty much the entire establishment in Ireland, aside from the increasingly uninfluential bishops and priests, backs gay marriage (giving the lie to the gay-marriage movement’s depiction of itself as a beleaguered minority bravely battling The Man for its civil rights). From the prime minister, Enda Kenny, to the vast majority of Dail Eireann, to pretty much the whole media – most notably the Irish Times, voice of the minuscule cultural elite in Dublin that sets the moral and political agenda in Ireland – every person with power is rallying for gay marriage. And barely a week passes when they don’t demonise the other side, the smaller, less powerful side, the side which, in opposing gay marriage, is apparently harming citizens, causing violence and, worst of all, jeopardising Ireland’s political future.
As with all heretics in history, Ireland’s opponents of gay marriage stand accused of directly harming the public. So last month, the Psychological Society of Ireland issued a dire warning that the propaganda of the anti-gay marriage camp could ‘impact detrimentally on people’. PSI said it is ‘seriously concerned’ that this lobby’s claim that traditional marriage is better than gay marriage, on the grounds that a mother and father make better parents than two people of the same sex, could have ‘far-reaching implications’. It chastised opponents of gay marriage for promoting ideas that ‘run contrary to the positions of professional bodies’ – that is, for daring to defy the new priests: the expert class – and said their words could wreak mental and moral havoc.
End of excerpt
Christianity has devolved into a sad misinterpretation of “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” Cheat on my wife? Who are you to judge me, you are a sinner too! Beat my kids? Aren’t all sins equal in the eye of God, and you aren’t perfect either.
The “go, and sin no more” part of Christianity is dead. It used to be said “God is dead.” I say, “Sin is dead.”
Indeed, this is the core of liberalism: nothing is considered perverted. No sexual perversion, sin, or immoral act can be criticized or forbidden (unless, it involves children, and small children at that).
For me, the downfall of Christianity (and other religions in the West) is like 2,000 years of civilization fortresses crumbling in slow motion right before my eyes. How could I not rub my eyes in amazement? Just like that! Like watching entire cities implode in the slowest slow-motion right before your eyes amid immense clouds of dust. Who would have ever imagined that I would live through this exact moment in history? Yet here it is – this is the moment.
And in replacement of a religion with a god and the concept of sin, people can now choose between no god and no concept of sin, or a god and no concept of sin. As long as anything goes and anyone who disagrees is a bigot, it’s all that matters.
And we notice that the option of no god with the concept of sin is mostly absent. What does it say about humans? For heaven’s sake.
Also interesting is what is happening to religious people in the US (more or less conservative) who are apparently only now waking up to realizing just how ruthless and irrational liberals are. And since liberals dominate the educational, media, and cultural spheres, along with parts of the political/legal/government sphere, they control the state in culture wars terms. Since most of these liberals hate Christians and religion in general, but especially Christianity, Christians are now realizing the state is at present increasingly against them. And that they must choose which one they will pledge allegiance to, their god or the state which hates them. (Also because their only substantive party, the GOP, is made up of a good chunk of people who also hates them and their religious ethics (the liberal Republicans) who are in the GOP and control the GOP because of their imperialist and/or financial interests).
Liberals, on the other hand, are mostly supportive of the military-industrial-Wall Street complex if they can benefit from it, which most do, so the America they institute and labor for is a blood-thirsty war-mongering and a savage capitalism one, only one notch below their hawkish Republic counterparts, along with a profoundly perverted and dehumanized society in its core spheres of the personal. It is the culmination of everything that is most rotten that Americans can propose as a society. Add to this, a 1984 surveillance state. Nicely done, America!
Such people need politicians that embody their ruthless way of life and Hillary Clinton perfectly represents this culmination of rotten ideals in the main pillars of American society.
The US is very much like the saga of a wealthy family. First the grandfather builds the fortune. Then things start to be shaky with his son, who grew up in a life of moral decay but surrounded by every kind of silver-spoon privilege. By the time we get to the grand-son, it’s playboy time. No morals, no values, only a rabid thirst for luxuries, empty material status symbols, a completely unstructured family, all kinds of excesses, and a host of immoral attitudes and behaviors as a way of life.
We are now watching the grand-son phase of America. Its blood thirstiness for war and arms trading will continue (overtly or covertly) because it’s integral to its economic functioning. It will also increasingly fly off the rails in terms of personal and sexual attitudes and behaviors because one excess does go logically “avec” the other. They must have. Anyone objecting will be taken care off in the way that wealthy families have always taken care of their critics – through thuggery. Anyone with evidence of dirt on the family will be labeled a “terrorist” (or a “hater”) and will be done away with – no questions will be asked if the person was in any way a terrorist because the populace has now been more conditioned than a Pavlov dog in this respect.
We can’t complain of being bored – were it not for all the suffering that this will cause in the US and around the world to millions of innocent victims lying in its ugly path.
And on this note, I end my speech of the day. Alas.
From The Smoking Gun – excerpted portions of longer article:
APRIL 3–A business tycoon gave a gay porn star $500,000 and a luxury automobile in hush money payments after being threatened with the exposure of details of his paid sexual liaisons with the accused extortionist and other X-rated performers, according to sources and court records.
The alleged shakedown scheme resulted in the arrest last month of Teofil Brank, a 25-year-old Los Angeles man known professionally as “Jarec Wentworth.” A U.S. District Court judge has ordered Brank held without bail in advance of trial on the felony charge.
Brank’s alleged victim–who is only identified by the initials “D.B.” in court filings–is Donald Burns, 51, a regular on the society circuit who made his fortune through the 1997 sale of a telecommunications firm he co-founded. The jet-setting Burns’s real estate portfolio includes waterfront estates in La Jolla, Nantucket, and Palm Beach, where he lives a mile up N. Ocean Boulevard from Rush Limbaugh’s compound.
The businessman also gave the porn star his Audi R8, which investigators valued at $180,000. Brank picked up the vehicle at Burns’s La Jolla home, which he purchased in 2011 for $14.1 million.
The six-figure payoff, however, did not sate Brank, according to prosecutors. In a series of text messages, the porn star demanded an additional $1 million for his silence. Brank also told Burns, “I want a condo here in LA. Bachelor pad.”
Faced with the new demands, Burns contacted the FBI on March 3. In subsequent interviews with agents and prosecutors, Burns admitted paying Brank for sex, as well as arranging sexual encounters with other men. In text messages quoted in the felony complaint, Brank told Burns, “You lied to me and treated me like Shit,” adding that, “I only wanted to drive cars and Enjoy your company. I guess findin you boys is out of the picture.”
Brank was arrested March 4 when he met with an undercover FBI agent posing as a “trusted friend” of Burns (pictured below). During the meeting at a Starbucks in El Segundo, the agent provided Brank with title to the Audi and claimed that the $1 million was in the trunk of his vehicle.
During a court hearing last Friday, prosecutor Kimberly Jaimez told Judge John Walter that “D.B.” paid Brank “for sexual conduct” and also gave him up to $2000 for individual referrals to “other individuals who would have sexual contact.” Jaimez estimated that Brank made “less than ten” of these referrals to “D.B.”
Jaimez said that Brank met “D.B.” in late-2013, when the victim “began considering investments in the homosexual pornography industry and in connection with that began having meetings and getting to know individuals in that industry.” When Walter asked if Brank and “D.B.” were “business associates,” Jaimez made the nature of their relationship clear. “Pay-for-sex operation,” she said.
In reply to a question about the age of the sex partners referred to “D.B” by Brank, Jaimez told Walter that “D.B.” “informs us that all these boys were over the age of 18.” She added that FBI agents were investigating to confirm that the sex referrals did not involve minors.
Brank’s lawyers have countered that “D.B.” does not deserve anonymity since, “by the government’s own admission,” he allegedly paid Brank for sex and to “procure sexual partners for himself.” Jaimez also disclosed that there is evidence that several Brank associates were involved in the extortion plot and, as a result, could face conspiracy charges.
Additionally, Brank’s counsel contends that, “the government does not know whether any of the ‘boys’ with whom D.B. engaged in sexual activity were underage. This begs the fundamental question of why D.B. is not named as a fellow defendant given that he engaged in an interstate arrangement with Mr. Brank to pay for procurement of sexual partners.”
A judge has, so far, agreed to keep “D.B.”’s name out of the public court record.
The salacious nature of the case is likely of concern to Burns, who regularly attends charity galas and society events and sits on the board of a public company. He also heads an eponymous charitable foundation that donates to organizations in Nantucket and Palm Beach, where Burns maintains his principal residence, an oceanfront mansion. According to its 2013 tax return, the Donald A. Burns Foundation had assets totaling $10.1 million and it paid Burns $132,834 annually for his work as the group’s president. Over the last five years, the foundation has reported donations totaling $2.2 million
Burns’s wealth appears principally derived from the 1997 sale of Telco Communications Group, a Virginia-based long-distance phone carrier. According to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Burns–Telco’s founder and chief executive–received around $250 million in cash and stock when the deal closed.
Burns has maintained a role in the telecommunications industry through positions with Magicjack Vocaltec Ltd., the publicly held company that produces the magicJack Internet phone device. Burns, chairman of the company’s board of directors, reportedly provided part of the investment used to launch the firm, and he served as its chief executive for several years. According to an SEC filing, he currently owns Magicjack stock with a market value of $2.8 million.
A registered Republican, Burns has donated to a variety of GOP candidates and committees, including Mitt Romney, Scott Brown, Jeb Bush, Rudolph Giuliani, and the Republican Party of San Diego. In 2004, Burns made a $1000 donation to a “swift boat” group opposing Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, and he also gave money to the presidential campaigns of John Edwards and Ralph Nader. Last year, he made a maximum $2600 contribution to Richard Tisei, an openly gay, married Republican who lost a bid for a congressional seat in Massachusetts.
Burns’s largest political donations came in 2008, when he contributed $400,000 to a group opposing a Florida ballot measure that called for amending the state constitution so as to define marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman. The measure, which passed with 62 percent of the vote, is the subject of ongoing litigation by gay marriage proponents. (14 pages)
Another example of the turds of people who impose the dominant culture of the West right now. My question remains: why should such garbage of people be the ones who dictate to our children how they should think about relationships and sexuality and how laws and society should be organized, and more fundamentally, even understood?
Notice the problem with liberal language: “a gay porn star”.
What is this but a person who has a profoundly perverted, deformed, parasitic, and dysfunctional psychology and ideology regarding relationships and sexuality, and who engages in prostitution with a camera?
And yet, look at the what this language does. “Gay” “porn” “star”.
Recently I came across a thesis on a legal question about pornography (which I only browsed because of lack of time). Why hasn’t pornography that involves a monetary transaction been pursued as prostitution with the use of a camera, since that’s exactly what it is?
I have found no satisfactory answer in terms of legal coherence. The only explanation is that once sexually perverted people gain power, they will institute as legal any and all of their perverted and destructive behaviors. And they will persecute anyone who does not subject to their deformed ideology and praxis, which is in this case the larger liberal homosexuality agenda, one of the core parts of the liberal agenda on sexuality.
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4/2/2015 7:50 PM GMT+0200
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Actually, the Left should just go around and paint yellow crosses on any known Christian stores so that “tolerant” “inclusive” Americans will know not to patronize these “hateful” “bigoted” businesses, until we can come up with a “Final Solution” to the “Christian problem.” We can party like its 1935. Congratulations “liberals” you’ve just created the same recipe for a “Kristallnacht” in America.
…
The only good thing about this is that a bit more people are waking up to the fascist aspect of the homosexuality agenda from liberals.
And it only took 15 years for some of these people to wake up to what I had been writing back when! ( 😛 )
As liberals conquer and hog more crude power and succeed in establishing legitimacy for their agenda, the nastier and the more persecutory they will become. While they have been fueling this fanatical scorched-earth attitude for a long time, it was somewhat restrained before, gaining more steam in their more profound enclaves, and not really reaching Christian/conservative communities in the depths of their communities. But now the offensive is beginning to strike within social conservative spaces, dragging the “enemies of the people” from their pizza parlors into the public square and doing a great big liberal lynching.
While raising money for the family involved is certainly an important gesture (both for the family’s livelihood, as well as an act of symbolic resistance in the culture wars), dismantling of the concept that homosexuality is normal is the work to remains be done in America (and the Western world).
Reflections, Reflections by Alessandra 