In a paper recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics entitled “The Corporate Psychopaths: Theory of the Global Financial Crisis”, Clive R Boddy identifies ways in which Corporations may be actually searching out and employing mentally deranged individuals because of their unique and savy ability to be shrewd and impersonal.

The paper has caused quite a stir and further investigation into the notion. From an article in  the Independent:

“Cut to a pleasantly warm evening in Bahrain. My companion, a senior UK investment banker and I, are discussing the most successful banking types we know and what makes them tick. I argue that they often conform to the characteristics displayed by social psychopaths. To my surprise, my friend agrees.

He then makes an astonishing confession: “At one major investment bank for which I worked, we used psychometric testing to recruit social psychopaths because their characteristics exactly suited them to senior corporate finance roles.”

Original research paper here

But first some background about why I decided to write on Lothair….

“Lothar of the Hill people” is an old SNL skit based upon “Lothar of the hand people”, a band of mad dwarves that packed in their synthesizers and took electropop country to the people. Just listen

All that to say “Lothar of the hand people” got me wondering about the original Lothar and how he must’ve handled himself. Actually I thought Lothar might be a good name for a dog and then I “suddenly remembered my Charlemagne”

Once upon a time in the 9th Century there was a European Union Called the Carolingian Empire. It ran from pink to yellow.

The whole thing was ultimately set up by Charlemagne, King of the Franks. Charlemagne was actually Belgian but since we all know Belgium isn’t a real country, we’ll call him what everyone else called him, Charlemagne (Karl= old man + magne= the great). Even today the root “kral” or king comes from the old man’s name. Here you see Charlemagne’s tag as you would find it marking his land and stuff.

Like all Belgian kings of note, Charlemagne spent much of his reign expanding and consolidating his empire. Managing it would be something else. After Charlemagne died, His 3 grandsons were put in charge of the kingdom, according to the color coded map above.

Louis the German got yellow,

Charles the Bald got Pink,

and Lothair I got green.

Lothair’s empire was Lothringen which is today known as Lorraine, an area much sought after in wars through to wwii.

Louis set up Germany, Charles the Bald founded France, but Lothair…. could never get the love from his other two brothers and he ended up brokering a weak peace agreement and leaving his share of the union to HIS three sons.

Son 1 took Nothern Italy, Son 2 Provence and Son 3 (Lothair II) got Lotharingia

There is no Lotharingia today because Lothair II couldn’t get a legitimate heir to the throne. He only produced a bastard child named Hugh to run what is now the Benelux region. But because he was such a bastard, Hugh had his eyes gouged out by Charles the Fat (a son of Louis the German) and things disentigrated from there.

Bottom Line: The empire is always pissed away in a peter principled way when the children come to rule what they themselves never grasped.

Get to know the Cathars, the cause for the first inquisition in the 12th century. They appear to have a gnostic, anarcho-christian-buddo-daoist take on life. They have been the source of a lot of curiosity over the centuries, mostly because of their violent suppression by the church and perhaps because they had some secrets to keep. Otto Rahn, the sheepish and eccentric expert on the Cathars was convinced they had the grail. So convinced was Rahn that the SS made him chief of archeology and gave him funding to find it. He didn’t. Instead he died alone in a forest.

The Cathars believed in light. A spark of divine light that existed in mankind. This light, or spirit, had fallen into captivity within a realm of corruption identified with the physical body and world. Their goal was liberation from the realm of limitation and corruption identified with material existence.

The path to liberation first required an awakening to the intrinsic corruption of the medieval “consensus reality”, including its ecclesiastical, dogmatic and social structures. Once cognizant of the grim existential reality of human existence (the “prison” of matter), the path to spiritual liberation became obvious: matter’s enslaving bonds must be broken. This was a step-by-step process, accomplished in different measures by each individual. The Cathars accepted the idea of reincarnation. Those who were unable to achieve liberation during their current mortal journey would return another time to continue the struggle for perfection. Thus, it should be understood that being reincarnated was neither inevitable nor desirable, and that it occurred because not all humans could break the enthralling chains of matter within a single lifetime

There is no “Welcome to Catharism” website because nearly all of them were killed or psyched out in the Albigensian Crusade.

It is widely held in the Cathar region of Southern France to this day that the escapees took with them le tresor cathar. What this treasure consisted of has been a matter of considerable speculation.

if tabloid news has any insight to offer,
it’s that going public
with your private life
makes you crazy.

so why are people voluntarily opening themselves up,
turning their lives inside out,
and ignoring the negative consequences
of public consumption?

is it because we’ve all been entrained
to aspire to fame,
isn’t that what we all want?

you’d better figure out what you’re doing
because whatever you put out there
will mark you, lock you in
and sooner or later
you’ll lose control

what if the russians actually won the cold war…

not the soviets as the soviets, but a small fragment within the goverment that continued on in it’s mission
even to this day

i got to thinking on the plane  about how some russians are so incredibly smart…
like genius buddha aspergers smart.
so why was it they were always behind
ok not always behind
but atleast not always on the ball, not too motivated
in developing better nukes and bombers?
oh sure,
they lifted a finger when they had to,
but maybe their tactics didn’t match the West’s

What if they were playing according to a different playbook
What if they were following the Sun Tzu approach
…
the wise ruler avoids warfare altogether
…

undermine and destabilize your opponent not by your own force, but their’s

if you can identify the flaws and weaknesses in your opponent
then all you do is facilitate your opponent’s implementation of those weaknesses
to the point that your opponent seals his own demise

what if the kgb or some more specific unit within the soviet system was working to this end?
they saw the problems that arise with personal freedom, the limitations of true equality…

i.e. they saw all the potential for hypocrisy inherent in the western system and decided to capitalize.
they pushed here and there to promote these flaws to the point that the overall structure slowly began to fall apart,
meanwhile no one was paying attention… after all the west won.

nobody thought anymore about it.
but what if the cold war isn’t really over?

To verificate, click here and then be healed.

Itenerary via Prague Daily Monitor, Illustrated manna via popetoast.com

Robert Strange McNamara died in his sleep this morning. A peaceful end for the 93 year old Master of War who tried to rationally streamline violence, warfare and the American automobile. He never dropped a bomb or fired a gun, but he could annihilate whole cities with his slide ruler and pen. The firebombing of Tokyo (seen above), the body counts of Vietnam, and the Ford Falcon were all brainchildren of Master Robert. Good night Shiva.

It’s important to note that prior to all the bombing and postwar hindsight, McNamara was hailed as the “whiz” kid that scored highest on the standardized tests and processed information better than a computer. Trouble was he had no moral intelligence- winning and losing had nothing to do with right and wrong. I wonder how much we’ve learned

The Fog of War (2003) is an in depth discussion with McNamara where he nurembergs himself out of culpability by reasoning that he’s learned a lot of lessons. Highlights include scuttling the Domino theory and a mea culpa long gaze when Errol Morris asks him if he considers himself a War Criminal. In McNamara’s defense, he is possibly one of the only wartime architects to enter the house of Empire and to ever come close to apologizing for his errors. Once you get in, the machine tends to eat you.

The Washington Post is losing money. Lots. Last year it blew $19.5 million just to keep rolling. It happens. Back in the 1880′s, when things were tight, the editors revamped themselves and commissioned John Philip Sousa to write a march. Today the offspring running the show aren’t as tactful. Katharine Weymouth, heir apparent and CEO of the Post, has now diversified into power brokering for Lobbyists and Low level Government officials.

A few days back Weymouth had D.C. plastered in fliers. She was promoting a gathering of minds and money: “Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate”. She planned to have some influential Obama people lyring around, Some Washington Post writers for good measure, and of course the lobbyists- the invited guests who needed to pay for “special access”. Seats at the table could be bought for anywhere from $25,000 to $250,000, depending on how much airtime you wanted or whether you needed a backroom and a hot tub.

There’s no doubt, Katharine knows how to throw a party. It’s in the genes. You ever seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s? That’s her grandma (above), Katharine Graham with Truman Capote. In fact the tangle of public service and influence runs deep. Click on spider web above…. The first of these Salon parties was set for July 21. Topic: “Health-Care Reform: Better or Worse for Americans? The reform and funding debate”, discuss amongst yourselves. That’s really great, thanks for framing things and setting the agenda Kathy. Obviously Health care in America shouldn’t be touched because it rocks. Like we even needed a debate. Say got anymore of that dip?

If the newspaper wasn’t so hard up for money, she could’ve probably gotten away with having a party and getting people in the mood to make deals. But since the news broke about tickets, I love how the whole affair is defended as a backbreaking public service to the community. I say go get the tar. Meanwhile the Post tumbles and Joseph Pulitzer is creaking in his grave. So it goes.

(via Politico)

Before I get to the brunt of this transmission, let me point out that the world record for “Largest Object Removed From Human Skull” goes to survivor Michael Hill of Jacksonville, Florida. I think the title should include something about being alive, as i’ve seen lots of big objects removed from a human skull. I’m sure the Guinness people have you sign off on something, I don’t know. To date my only world records are in dispute.

Mr. Hill has lost the function of his left hand and has also incurred a bit of memory misplacement, but he’s still very lucky. That tip is pretty dern close to his brainstem. He has a devoted following of neurologists who want to know exactly how his brain is adapting over time. With the development of technology like the  fMRI, brain evaluation can be illustrated while you think.

Right now these machines are clunky and expensive, but fMRI’s will soon be here in affordable helmet size. With increased access to scanning, the active brain will be mapped even faster than the human genome, but like the genome- mapping and understanding don’t necessarily equate. Funny, I think that works in a lot of other cases as well: People that have the map out usually have very little understanding of their surroundings- I’m thinking of Geneticists as well as Japanese tourists and Spanish Conquistadors.

What comes after we start unfolding things is a big debate…  oops we’re already there: Think of all the new mental disorders that will be self diagnosable. Think of all the ways a fabric softener company will be able to personally meet your fabric softener needs…. of course the debate on which direction things go will probably be postponed or skipped in lieu of some cataclysmic national security threat or simply because the debaters aren’t doing their homework.

So while Pandora’s black box is finally being gutted, you can rest assured that everything is under control. The terrorists can be detected in utero, and children with pyromaniac tendencies can be premedicated.

Here’s the luscious Lesley Stahl on 60 minutes trying to break things down. The part about a light beam watching your thought patterns from the skies, that’s just great: coming soon- humans finally get outsourced by “enlightened” machines who take our satellite access codes and finally domesticate us. Afterwards they get bored and decide to reboot… Are we just a layover in the great scheme of things, assuming that there is such a thing as progress.

]]> http://cultandpaste.com/2009/06/30/leslie-stahl-takes-a-stab-at-mind-reading/feed/ 1 cultandpaste psychoprophylaxis i can read your mind http://cultandpaste.com/2009/06/30/building-integrity/ http://cultandpaste.com/2009/06/30/building-integrity/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:31:45 +0000 cultandpaste http://cultandpaste.com/?p=1193 ]]> The wise man built his apartment block upon the rocks, but the foolish man built his flats upon the Dianpu River AND after it was built, he decided to dig out the foundation to make a parking garage…. and the house on the bank went splat.

(via zonaeuropa and cellar.org)

Russian leadership succession follows a very specific pattern: Hairy guy, bald guy, hairy guy, bald guy….

This goes back to the time of Alexander I, who was both hairy and bald

By a vote of 15-14, the resolution to honor local Tennessee homeboy, Albert Arnold Gore Jr., has failed. Authors of the measure thought it was time the state testified to Gore’s Nobel Laureateness and internet inventiveness. Most senators voting against the measure argued that Al Gore is still alive (though this point has been highly contested) and only dead men can be honored with an erection in the statehouse.

No peep out of the Gore camp on whether he’ll campaign for a bust instead, his website acts like it never happened, just like it does with his kids in Nerf Korea. Will Al go there? Will he come back? What would he have to do to get them back?

Will he eat dog?

Omar Bongo Ondimba, President of Gabon has died. His friends called him Omar Bongo. One Norwegian foreign Minister mistakenly identified him as Bongo from the Congo. Whatever… No more Bongo. He went down in Barcelona. It was his heart. The Bongo was 73.

For 41 years Mr. Bongo ruled Gabon. In 2008 when Fidel Castro retired his fatigues and put on that awful track suit, it was Bongo who became the World record holder for most years logged as a national powerman.

Bongo leaves behind a relatively stable country, some statues of himself and plenty of bookkeeping to look into. The man had a number of grand estates in France and St. elsewhere, not to mention his velvety Stutz Royale- one of only three ever made. I wonder who gets the keys to the limo anyway…. When managing oil revenue for Elf it’s always difficult to keep your hands clean. Jacko sighted getting some kind of Bongo lifetime achievement award. Vaya con Dios Señor Bongo.

It has recently been reported that North Korea is flaring up… again. This is not the first time that the country has played the wild card and threatened to blow up the universe. North Korea is mad about nuclear weapons. Maybe it has something to do with that fateful day July 9, 1950 when Douglas MacArthur suggested blowing up the North with atomic bombs.

“I see here a unique use for the atomic bomb…to strike a blocking blow”

I can see how MacArthur would think that. By October of 1950, B-29s had already unloaded 866,914 gallons of napalm on the Northern lands. The war would of course linger on and the truce that started in 1953 is now considered over. Pyongyang has been a little klepto since 1950 about getting their hands on the yellow cake. When South Korea announced plans that they would board and search vessels coming in and out of the harbor. North Korea went ballistic. But who’s in charge up there?

Kim Jong Il, fearless leader and film buff, seems to be suffering from complications of a stroke and/or bad haircut. This may or may not have precipitated missile launching. It’s difficult to say just who is in control in Pyongyang today. Obviously there is a lot at stake for the top Military Brass who have dedicated their lives to support the national brainwash. But what of the Kim Dynasty? Who will take up the burden and paint themselves across the country as the Eternal president 공화국의 영원한 주석? Who will tend to the Family Mausoleum?

Kenji Fujimoto, the personal sushi chef for Kim Jong-il wrote a tell-all memoir aptly titled, I Was Kim Jong Il’s Cook. Mr. Fujimoto is no doubt a much better chef than biographer, however he is one of the only earthlings to have ever wined and dined the Kim family. His character studies may shed light on the future of the Juche State. Kim Jong Il has done his share of fruiting and multiplying. By fertilizing as many different women as possible he has ensured a stronger chance at genetic variability for North Korea’s future. Here are some of his works:

김정남 Kim Jong-nam (b.1971) alias- Pang Xiong “Fat Bear”

Firstborn illegitimate child of Kim Jong Il and DPRK movie starlet. Raised in secret and fed only kim chee and cheetos. Arrested at Narita airport in 2001 while trying to visit Tokyo Disneyland (東京ディズニーリゾート ,Tōkyō Dizunī Rizōto).

• Likes: Bathhouses, prostitutes and Prostitute Bathhouses, golfing with his father who reportedly averages 2 or 3 hole-in-one’s per round (source North Korean Golf Digest).
• Dislikes: the limelight, Oprah Winfrey, Butterfinger candy bars.

Recent sitings include Macau, Austria, Beijing, Moscow and the South of France.

___________________________________________________

김설송 Kim Sul-song (b.1974) identity in question, possible composite image generated.

___________________________________________________

김정철 Kim Jong-chul (b.1981) aka- chol pak, the “effeminate one”

Currently serving out a term as Deputy Chief of the Worker’s party. Studied at the International School of Berne, in Gümligen, Switzerland where he learned to curl hair and pronounce the letter “L” .

• Likes: riding in dad’s armored train car and getting fresh lobster delivered by heliport
• Dislikes: Duran Duran, Nuclear physics

Recent Sitings: 2006 Eric Clapton Concert in Germany, FIFA world cup game

_________________________________________________

김정운 Kim Jong-un (b.1983) aka “the diabetic” new fearless leader

A card carrying member of the National Defense commision. Known to have attended school with his brother in Switzerland where he excelled on the Backgammon squad and earned a reputation as an avid spelunker. If North Korea is going to play the Dynasty card, This Kim will most likely be the family front man

• Likes: temper tantrums and talking dirty in German
• Dislikes: Accompanying his father to brain surgeries

Sightings: none

___________________________________________________

Assorted other illegitimate children who could not be reached for comment

Lover Daughter Mieko 美惠子-daughter of a Japanese dancer. Lives in Japan and telephones on Birthdays and public holidays

Love son Kim Hyong-nam  aka Kim Don Juan- not sure whether he even exists, but was apparently adopted at birth either by extended Kim family or by a pack of wolves

Bumper Cars, How fitting… Dick

To understand the madness of a man ruled by terror, consider 3 moments that molded him into legend.

1. Rejection in Youth / 1774- afternoon pep rally at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand A High School in downtown Paris. it’s raining.

Everyone is waiting with eagerness to get a glimpse of the newly crowned king and his 14 year old Austrian bird. Young Max stands near the front. He has been selected by the headmaster to give the welcoming address to Louis. For days, Max has agonized over just what to say first, how he will bow, and whether or not he will make eye contact with queen.

Hours pass… it continues to rain

Everyone is now thoroughly drenched. The teachers begin to file the students back to the classrooms… when suddenly the royal carriage is spotted at the school gates. Max’s heartbeat rises. He needs to pee really bad. The carriage door swings open and The Headmaster is asked to approach…

The headmaster returns from the carriage in a bad mood, “Hurry up and read your speech boy.” Max looks at the carriage. The royal couple are inside tickling each other. “Go on, His majesty doesn’t want to get his wig wet.

The only sound is rain pelting down on Max’s speech notes. Max looks down and can’t decipher a bit of it. He tries his best to remember what it was he wanted to say. His classmates begin to snicker. The next day he sees his name on the bathroom wall. He has been dubbed a wanker.

2. Ostracism by friends and family / 9th of Thermidor, Year II (aka 27 July, 1794)

A mature Robespierre has outdone himself in recent years. Not only has he vanquished and beheaded some of France’s most popular political figures, He has also started a religion… the Cult of The Supreme Being, complete with rites… song and dance. The cult never takes off. Max enforces it… bigger rituals, more doctrine, funkier hats… Failure.

And so it goes with everything else… Now on the 9th day of the month of Thermidor, it’s raining and yet another speech prepared on behalf of the Commitee on Public Safety. This time Robespierre is shouted out before he can begin. His rivals who call for his arrest, have had enough war on terror. Max must flee. He and his only surviving friends, the last band stand of the Jacobins, are now being hunted through the corridors of the Hôtel de Ville by the republican guard.

Augustin, Max’s brother, is there. He was talking tough a few hours ago- I’ll stand by you, brother’s keeper and all that jazz-  now he wards off the fuzz by jumping through a window and breaking both his legs… One comrade says goodbye to revolution by falling down the stairs, another one shoots himself in the head.

And so it’s down to Maximilien in a room with a view. The guards are about to barge through the doors… Max has to pee. And this is where things get fuzzy. The arresting officer claims he shot Robespierre. But inside sources say Robespierre was attempting suicide… and failed. The gunshot made an impact but only on his face: Robespierre is alive but he can’t move his jaw.

3. More than a feeling / Next Morning July 28.

Robespierre has his head turbaned and he’s being carted out to the main event execution stage. People begin to cheer. Max, still slightly concussed, begins humming to himself…

I looked out this morning and the sun was gone
Turned on some music to start my day
I lost myself in a familiar song
I closed my eyes and I slipped away

It’s “More than a feeling”…. by the time he reaches the platform he sees Marianne, the National emblem of France, walking away. Nearly 182 years later he’ll meet Tom Scholz in the MIT Library and pass the song on to him. Mike Huckabee will meet Robespierre in a dream and will be convinced to employ the song as the main theme for his “sure fire” election win.

But on this day, Robespierre alone will face the guillotine heads up towards the blade, screaming out a guitar solo as the bandages are ripped off his face and the Reign of terror meets a sharp end.

___________________________________________

• Thank you Kohen Gadol for the idea of formal shaman urban-turban wear
• Thank you Michael III, the drunkard, for making it imperially cool to wear hats
• Thank you Leo IX for the Papal Bull, delineating who was entitled to wear a snowcone
• Thank you Padre Pio for having no hand in this whatesoever
• Thank you Pope Shenouda III for bringing back the bling
• Thank you Vesalius for calling the mitral valve, mitral

Governing China is like holding a mad wolf by the ears. A foaming, mad wolf with rabies. if you try to let go, you get munched. the only hope is to hold tight. This is the mainstay of post-mao modernization in china. smile for the cameras, and whip everyone into nationalistic submission either by hook or crook. How else do you expect to rule a mass of 1.6 billion people?!

In Tibet, the Lamas have a history of ruling the country as they pleased, not necessarily for the greater good- before the reds came charging up the foothills, burning and a killing, the monks were the supreme local repressors and they got to hold the squeezebox…. now that power has crossed cultural and ethnic lines, its a much bigger deal. i.e…. only i’m aloud to beat my kids.

That is not to say Tibet hasn’t suffered at the hands of the Communist nitwits in the present and past, they have… but so has China. Don’t forget that somewhere between 18 and 25 million people either starved to death or ate each other during the famines surrounding the Cult-ural Revolution. This goes without saying anything about the present… the rest of the world has propped up the Chinese government with plenty of “make us crap and we’ll pay you later” trade policies

As for the Tibet issue, let’s get real. Tibet has always been intermittently subject to foreigners- not only of the Chinese variety- the notion that things were once EDENesque there is a real gloss.

The problem with the present Chinese rule is the EGOMANIA-  (i.e. we’re the best at everything, we’re older than dirt, we pay lip-service to the west but really we rock so much harder.) this creates the racist, xenophobic tendencies that lead to squashing insurrections and hot flashes of violence in temples scenes. Every big country has a tendency to slip into this mentality- America, Russia… but the Chinese variety is a bit dangerous because they feel like they have so much to prove. Look at the way they went ahead with the whole Three gorges, gorgeous Hydroelectric dam-n debacle just because the forebearers willed it to be. Even the World Bank said it was a bad idea- moving all those people, locking up the fish. There’s a line of rationality that isn’t trickling down correctly.

I do take my shoe off  for the Central Committee, It’s no easy task ruling Bladerunner China- On the outside, you got hot head neighbors like North Korea, The Russian Mob, and touchy Taiwan. On the inside you got disgruntled workers, a disproportionate number of frustrated single males, a lot of poor people watching a select few get rich…. It makes sense that most of the Committee are a bunch of Scientists and engineers…. , much of the time it’s the middle men, the local representatives that are to blame for much of the shoddy policy.

As for Tibet, they need neither the Dalai Lama nor the People’s Central Committee breathing down their neck…. They need someone to come in, and say…. we’re going to show you why your way of life is important, attractive and needs to be preserved- and here’s how you can sustain it in the midst of globalization- let’s build some schools, let’s rebuild the libraries, let’s build some high altitude laboratories, let’s farm what we can and create attractive, low impact tourism.

In short they need Norway. China has turned the rooftop of the world into a second rate Disneyville with a shoddy power grid and a lot of crap markets. Of course they paid for it all, and they had to push a lot of people and culture out of the way to do it. now they want what’s coming.

Yet, whenever people get all high and mighty about Tibet and the Dalai, I think about the time he fled Tibet in 1959. He was met with a Mercedes Benz at the border because he was an asset to some big, important countries…. what a thorn he’ll be (thought They). and what a loveable thorn he is.

All nostalgia and romanticism aside. From a geopolitical point of view, If the central committee relents on its grip of Tibet, Xinjiang province (uighurville) will slip next, then Outer Mongolia, then…. then all the rich provinces around the big cities will start to think, “say- we’re not paying big taxes so the money can go to the poor interior…” and they’ll create their own states to set up better deals for their regions…..

THIS is why the country is selling nationalism so hard. This is why the Olympics were so integral to the master plan. It’s the only way to keep everyone together. Minority or not- China claims over 50 distinct minorites- i’d still like to see the PCR diagnostics.

]]> http://cultandpaste.com/2009/04/18/the-candyland-doctrine-china-and-short-term-memories/feed/ 3 cultandpaste http://ieas.berkeley.edu/images/events/2005.10.21.jpg http://www.dalailamanederland.nl/site/wp-content/dump/foto-1-007-his-holiness-panchen-lama-moatse-tung.jpg http://china20.thechinabusinessnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/shanghai_pudong.jpg http://images.sinohotel.com/images/2006/08/16/132605318.jpg http://www.naz.edu/events/Image/smsd-3monks.jpg http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0d4U3Vl2kh7lM/610x.jpg http://blog.beliefnet.com/beyondblue/imgs/candyland.jpg http://www.asianconnections.com/i/304/ac.nova_ChinaMan_small.jpg http://cultandpaste.com/2009/04/17/reagan-ranch-wildflower-seed-mix/ http://cultandpaste.com/2009/04/17/reagan-ranch-wildflower-seed-mix/#comments Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:22:13 +0000 cultandpaste http://cultandpaste.com/?p=553 ]]>

A lot of firsts for the man in the saddle. The first president to be divorced, the first president to survive an assasination, He ranked as the Greatest American in an “unscientific poll” carried out by Matt Lauer. Matt Lauer is a dirty russian spy.

Anyway Back to President Rogaine… about 1997, around the same time Bill Clinton was reaching for his cigar box, Nancy had Ronnie locked in his room with “Hellcats of the Navy” running on repeat and the Reaganites (or what was left of them after Iran Contra) got their outfit reorganized and  began their mission to deify their great lord and master.

Within months, seeds were sewn. Airports, highways, aircraft carriers, bridges, supermarket aisles, orphaned children and yes even the valsalva maneuver were renamed in honor of Ronald Reagan. Various genetic relations of mine, who i would be willing to defend in court, being great believers in America, Manifest Destiny and various degrees of Judeo-Christian-Country-Club-humble-pie-superiority actively contributed to these “Ronnie the Hero” measures. Now that these seeds have slipped into my hands I cast them to the whims of the world. Thank you Mr. Reagan for cutting all the mental asylum funding and turning sick people into sick homeless drug addict people. This video sums it all up.

Recipe for misguided aesthetics casserole:

• take a handful of failed, sheltered artists and let them have a go at rewiring human nature
• give them lots of money, acclaim, power…. cameras
• go ahead and give a few of them mustaches
• host some art exhibits and pomp
• put the failed artists in charge of the doctors, lawyers and indian chiefs
• explain away ultra violence with arguments like “strength, the future, confidence, dry and secure”
• don’t question anything you can’t see
• be sure to keep things pure and annihilate competitive purists
• simmer until you see smokestacks poking through the body politick

Architecture of Doom is a documentary exploring the third reich as an art movement. A new frame for society is conjured up from a Wagnerian playbook. All undertakings- from catabolism to anabolism- are justified in the light of a select few’s artistic delusions of grandeur. Power shows its teeth, but also its shortcomings…

Paris syndrome (a form of Stendhal Syndrome similar to Jerusalem Syndrome) is a pyscho-pathological disorder manifesting with a wide variety of clinical symptoms. Nowadays its often throngs of Japanese tourists who are most affected. The excitement of the visit rolled in with an idealized version in one’s head, coupled to the exhaustion of jet-lag travel- your heart beats faster, giddiness sets in, hyperventillation, then come the hallucinations.

On June 23, 1940 Adolf Hitler takes an early morning guided tour through the empty streets of Paris. The dictator is in awe and he’s giddy. Yet one thought lingers in the back of his mind, Should Paris be leveled? After all Berlin must be the most beautiful of metropolises (metropoli?).

public service announcement #304: genetic variation is the spice of life; there’s really no such thing as a stable line.