This is an add-on to my last blog. Enjoy it. It's some of the purest and best rock music ever performed.

Won’t Get Fooled Again ....

Pete Townsend....

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We'll be fighting in the streets with our children at our feet,
And the morals that they worshipped will be gone,
And the men who spurred us on sit in judgment of all wrong.
They decide and the shotgun sings the song.

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution,
Smile and grin at the change all around us;
Pick up my guitar and play just like yesterday.
Then I'll get on my knees and pray:  We don't get fooled again.

The change it had to come.  We knew it all along.
We were liberated from the fold; that's all.
And the world looks just the same, and history ain't changed,
'Cause the banners, they were flown in the last war.

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution,
Smile and grin at the change all around us;
Pick up my guitar and play just like yesterday.
Then I'll get on my knees and pray:  We don't get fooled again.  No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside (If we happen to be left half alive).
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky, for I know that the hypnotized never lie, do ya?

Yeah!

There's nothing in the streets looks any different to me,
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye,
And the parting on the left is now parting on the right,
And the beards have all grown longer overnight.

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution,
Smile and grin at the change all around us;
Pick up my guitar and play just like yesterday.
Then I'll get on my knees and pray:  We don't get fooled again.  No, no!

Yeah!  ....

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Meet the new boss:  Same as the old boss.....

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[Track #9 - Who’s Next, by The Who, 1971, Polydor/Decca/MCA]....

There IS an ‘I’ in ‘Inane.’

James Staples

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There is no 'I' in 'Team.'  There is also no 'I' in: "Shut the fuck up and leave me the hell alone, you malodorous crap-weasel!  Your cutesy tone really gets on my nerves, duck-face, so, please, just go somewhere far away and then drop dead."  See? Not one single 'I' in two long sentences.  So, what's your point?  Besides, even if there is no ‘I’ in ‘Team,’ there is a ‘u’ in, “Fuck off.”

Now, while it is true that it takes more muscles to frown than it takes to smile, it also takes more muscles to point that out to me than it does to shut the fuck up and leave me the hell alone (...crap-weasel ...duck-face, etc.).   Given that a smile is just a frown turned upside-down, if I knocked you ass-over-elbows, would you still be smiling?  What if there was no one else around to hear you fall?  Would you still be making those annoying noises, about smiling, teamwork and how words are spelled?

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If I followed the chirpy advice to "treat every day like it was Christmas," I would be in a hell of a fix, and so would everyone else, because all the stores would be closed every day forever, and none of us would make any money ever again and the economy would collapse, and I'd probably be stuck eating at Denny's at least five days out of every week, and everyone's electric bills would be sky-high, and Christian hymns disguised as "Carols" really, really get on my nerves, and Jews, Pagans and Africans would be pissed off that no day was ever treated like it was Chanukah, Yule or Kwanzaa.  And, anyway, none of that holds a candle to the really major fact, which is that everyone would end up hating fruit-cake as much as I already hate it, and we would have to confront our hatred of it every single day.

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If there’s no point in crying over spilled milk, then there’s really no point in crying at all, since one reason is pretty much like another.  But that’s bullshit, because crying is good for you.  It’s better for you than milk; that’s for sure, especially if it’s pasteurized and homogenized, turning the calcium into aluminum nitrate, which is poisonous.  Crying, on the other hand, inhibits serotonin reuptake (i.e. makes you feel better), stimulates the flow of endorphins (i.e. makes you feel better) and eliminates toxins (i.e. makes you feel better).  There’s a point to crying; just no point in drinking milk.  Go ahead and spill it.  It sucks.  Then cry.  Fuck that stupid advice. 

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The star on which you are wishing might have burned out a million years ago.  When you threw that penny in the well, you made the water taste like crap, so I hope you wished for some Evian (which is naïve spelled backward, you gullible sucker).  And as for the milkweed fluff ...give me a break!  What else could you wish for except, “Oh, please don’t let my yard get infested with milkweed, now that I’ve blown seeds all over it.”

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Looking on the Sunny side means you go blind and get skin cancer.  Whistling while you work makes your co-workers fantasize about beating you to death with your own shoe.  Always seeing the good in everyone is a great strategy, as long as you enjoy being conned, robbed and assaulted.  If today is always the first day of the rest of your life, then there's never a second day of the rest of your life, which proves that life is short and you are doomed.  Hanging a dream-catcher from your rear-view mirror invites falling asleep at the wheel.  The blue-bird of happiness is surely just as filthy, disease-ridden and insane as every other bird.  If you bless me when I sneeze, why do you leave me twisting in the wind when I cough?  When you thank me for not smoking, you should also thank me for not farting, urinating or spitting on the floor.  And, for the last time, yes, goddamn it, it’s hot enough for me.

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...You’re going to tell me to have a nice day, now, aren’t you?

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Thor’s Hammer: A Racist Symbol?....

James Staples....

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A friend of mine, Professor Khaos Sixxx, sent me a question:  “I saw a special on gangs the other day and it said that Thor's hammers were a racist symbol. How did this happen? Can you shed some light on it?”  Here is my answer: ....

I'll try.  Mjollnir, the Thor’s hammer, has become a racist symbol in the same way as the swastika, and for pretty much the same reason.  Modern white supremism indelibly bears the stamp of Hitler and the Third Reich.  In this century, the terms "white supremist" and "Nazi" are held synonymous in popular culture (although there are plenty of white racist groups that are at odds with the Nazis, including, famously, the KKK).

Hitler used Asatru very heavily to prop up his particular line of horse shit.  He twisted the old writings so badly that even now, 70-plus years later, popular culture assumes out-of-hand that Norse heathens are all fascist bigots.  The trouble is: a whole heaping lot of Truar really ARE fascist bigots, and they do a lot to validate the media's association of Tru icons with white supremism and race separatism.  

It's pretty much the same as the association of the pentagram with Satanism:  I'd love to be able to say, "The pentagram is not a satanic symbol," but there are thousands of self-described Satanists who would say, "It is so!"  In the same way, I can say Mjollnir is not APPROPRIATELY a racist symbol, and as a Thorsgodi, I even have the balls to say, "Thor does not recognize or approve that use of his icon."  But sadly, wherever you find a brain, you also find an asshole, and you never know which one will speak louder.  So, while I certainly employ swastikas, Mjollnirs, pentagrams and all manner of other esoteric symbols in my magic, I tend to avoid using them in ways that put me in a position to have to explain and justify.  I might put a swastika on a candle for a prosperity spell, but I sure ain't wearin' one around my arm!  And, for what it’s worth, I have worn a small gold Mjollnir around my neck for fifteen years and I have never once had anyone confront me, thinking I was a racist, which I certainly am not.....

That's the anti-climactic fact of the matter:  Mjollnir is perceived as a racist symbol because a whole lot of racist douche-nozzles wear Mjollnirs while they're out sublimating their latent homosexuality and superstitious insecurities on the rest of us.....

I suspect it feels the same way for reasonable, intelligent Christians to be confronted by those bible-thumping, evangelical hell-mongers.  Every time one of those guys says, "Jesus" so it has four syllables ("jay-EE-zusss-ah!"), it must make the mild-mannered Episcopalians in the area cringe and ball their fists up.  That's how I feel every time some jag-off with a beard-you-could-smuggle-a-badger-in and an ancient tunic with machine-stitching and Velcro fasteners starts wanging on about race purity and the spiritual imperative to stomp on gays.  Those fuh-REAKS always have at least three Mjollnirs around their neck like Bronze-Age bling-bling.  ...ridiculous fuck-nuts.  How embarrassing!....

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They can't spoil it for me, though: ODHIN IS NOT A NAZI AND THOR LOVES EVERYBODY!!!....

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-THINK TRUTH.-....

POSITION 7: -THINK TRUTH- endorses TONY SERMONTI....

If Position 5 incumbent and corporate whore Jeff Kingsbury had two heads, the second one would be Position 7 incumbent Joe Hyer.  Joe Hyer shares Kingsbury’s long record of supporting big-money private interests over the clearly-stated will of his constituents.  Hyer never met a dollar he didn’t like and he never met a constituent ...well, ever, apparently.  The non-responsive nature of the Olympia City Council is perfectly embodied by this one man.  Moreover, he is pushy, abrasive, obnoxious and one of the least intellectually curious people I have ever met.

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Tony Sermonti has worked as a liaison between Olympia city government and the Evergreen State College.  He is the head of Capitol City Pride, and his principle platform plank is to increase openness and transparency in government.  He almost deserves the endorsement on the basis that he is not Joe Hyer.  Frankly, a patch of damp carpet would be a better candidate than Hyer.  Fortunately, however, Sermonti is a strong candidate in his own right, clearly the better choice and he has earned this endorsement.

PLEASE VOTE.  NOT VOTING KEEPS GREEDY, NON-RESPONSIVE, CORRUPT PEOPLE IN POWER.  EVERY VOTE CAST IMPROVES THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM AND STRENGTHENS OUR DEMOCRACY.

-THINK TRUTH.-

The Pig War:

Stupid White People at Their Best

James Staples

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As Americans, we love to reminisce about war.  It’s understandable, when you consider that, from the Boston Tea Party to the Hanoi Hilton, we’re ten and one.  However, that is partly due to the fact that we have conveniently edited a few episodes out of our collective memory.   July marks the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of one such let’s-pretend-this-never-happened episode, namely, the Pig War of San Juan Island, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Puget Sound, stretching from Washington State to Prince Edmond, British Columbia, in the northwest corner of the continental 48 states.  In 1859, the island was not the tourist trap it is today.  San Juan was home to a double handful of meager farmers from Canada and the U.S., trying to eke out a living on a scrap of arable land surrounded by salt water, orcas and really dodgy weather.

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Lyman Cutlar was one such farmer, an American who grew potatoes.  Another was Charles Griffin, a Canadian pig farmer and employee of the Hudson Bay Company, one of the British Empire’s giant corporations, the Exxon-Mobil of the 19^th century.  Griffin’s prize pig was a large black boar, whose name is sadly lost to history.  This boar was fond of potatoes and spent a fair amount of its time on Cutlar’s land, rooting out and munching on Cutlar’s produce.  Cutlar allegedly said, “It [the pig] is trespassing and eating my potatoes.”  Griffin is reported to have replied, “It is up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig.” 

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Cutlar allegedly offered Griffin $10.00 for the pig (presumably so he could have bacon with his hash browns).  Griffin scoffed and demanded the ludicrously absorbitant sum of $100.00, which in 1859, would have bought most of a pig farm, and could only be perceived as a sarcastic slap in the face.  Well, Cutlar did what any red-blooded American would do in such a situation:  he killed the damn pig.  Consequently, Griffin did what any blue-blooded Englishman would do:  he threw a shit-fit and went whining to his employers at the Hudson Bay Company.  Apparently, the Hudson Bay Company over-interpreted Griffin’s complaint, concluding that San Juan Island was the vortex of a rapidly-evolving border dispute between the United States and Canada, which was, of course, a jewel in the crown of the British Empire.

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Dignitaries of the Hudson Bay Company visited Cutlar and threatened to carry him off in manacles aboard a war steamer, to be tried at Victoria, by the high court of England, “for killing a worn out, poor old boar, that had only the ability to make havoc with Cutlar’s potato patch” [from the Pioneer & Democrat, July, 1859].  As one might predict, Cutlar suggested that the best course of action for the Hudson Bay Company would be for them to go fuck themselves, while at the same time removing themselves from his property, post haste.  This did not go over well, and the company representatives went whining to Queen “We-Are-Not-Amused” Victoria, who, at the time, was celebrating her 357^th birthday.

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Before anyone had a chance to point out that the British monarchy was full of inbred mouth-breathers, and that they were therefore not the best people to assess the growing crisis, Prince “What-an-Interesting-Place-For-a-Piercing” Albert dispatched three fully armed British Man-o’-War ships to secure Canada’s borders.  At this time, the 70-year-old U.S. government was still trying to decide if you could have brown skin and still be considered a person.  As such, the question of whether or not an American potato farmer killing a Canadian pig constituted an act of war was a thorny one for our statesmen.  Skipping over the diplomatic fine points, the U.S. State Department sent an urgent telegram to General George Pickett, commander of Fort Bellingham, on the mainland, near the U.S.-Canadian border.  His orders were to stop the three British warships from landing, at all costs.  A resumption of bloody hostility between the U.S. and Britain was suddenly in the offing. 

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Lack of a massive media-circus, such as we know today, kept this information mostly localized.  No one else in either country knew or cared, but on San Juan Island, the locals began to get into the traditional role of drinking loads of beer and waving their pitchforks around menacingly.  Scuffles broke out.  Some looting and pillaging occurred.  Various locals tried to claim the island for Canada or America, but when attempts were made to rally the farmers into militias, ready to give aid and support to the glorious naval campaign, the magical blood-lust spell seemed to wear off.  In the blink of an eye, cooler heads prevailed, as someone pointed out that going to war over a pig and some potatoes might be considered by our posterity to be somewhat on the moronic side.

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The pig was the only casualty.

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-THINK TRUTH.-

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Holy smokes, y'all, this is a whole lot of drumming coming from two guys live. Bozzio gets my vote for greatest living drummer and Wackerman is the world's emergency back-up Bozzio. Check this smack out, kids.

See? You actually CAN learn things in college! These cats are SUH-MOKIN'!!