I don't celebrate Christmas. It's been a long time since I wasn't turned off by the commercialisation of what is after all meant to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, a figure who by any metric began a story which in the age of horse travel was beating at the gates of power in Rome within half a century or so.
Are Vogue doing this for commercial reasons? I don't know but I can imagine some curled lips at both this and the mention Jesus' gets in the post. More over here.
Quite possibly the quintessential freedom-brand has nothing to say about freedom of the press, freedom of the individual, freedom of the State to pursue an individual facing fishy rape charges and so we're left wondering if the whole Brand image is an illusion that lives in an abstract and hermetically sealed world that bears no relation to the one ordinary people live in. Ordinary, as in people who don't wear shiny leathers, have long hair and sit on the fence usually reserved for gay moped owners?
What do Harley think about Julian Assange and those fishy rape charges? Are they even thinking? Or is it a thoughtless, no-trousers brand?
I had breakfast with my Thai Sister. We don't speak when I'm there. I try, but she prefers silence, so that's when I see the occasional ad with something going on, or as in this case, I caught sight of the screen image and was right by it in no time as the shots were still ringing out. Me incredulous. He did that didn't he. This is the real thing.
Its not nice, but I've uploaded it as I think too much of the dying process is cordoned off from us. Specifically the killing that takes place to protect our lifestyles. This clip too has been sanitised with the court officials being cropped out of it leaving their deaths to the imagination. Can I level with you? This is a no nonsense, matter of fact example of how banal a killer can be in their conduct.
He begins with by spray painting a circle overlapped by a larger V. As if remixing V is for Vendetta and Anarchy. Then he explains who stays, and instructs the the women to leave. One of the women returns doing Disney cartoon tiptoing behind the gunman only to fail miserably at dislodging the gun. He's not phased at all by this unexpected event.
Then we cut to the the best efforts of the court officials pleading they need to understand his motivation for their impending death, a sense of dragging it out longer than necessary emerges, the judge who actually signed the papers that led to this incident requests that everyone else be released.
I'm aware that in all this mess of man against whatever it is that the cultural complex leaves for so many, an incongruous relationship with something biological, and which pushes those on the margins, sometimes over the edge.
I'm touched that this still exists in our species, and that all is not lost. Not in one go anyway.
The shots take place matter of factly. The judges slain where they work and if I recall correctly from the uncensored TV screen version the gunman makes a hopping movement at some point as if maybe a guard has finally arrived at the scene and tried to prevent what had already been committed to history.
The sobering effects of guns are acute. When the barrel direction is on you, suddenly the realisation that its our consciousness which is beyond value and that all those remaining worldly goods are trivial and useless to barter with or to plead for our lives.
I feel bad about this event. Maybe it's dull with the cropped corpses. If the video provokes even minor changes in some lucky peoples priority of values, its worth the sickening feel it leaves behind.
I Me Mine is the ego problem. There are two 'I's: the little 'i' when people say 'I am this'; and the big 'I' - ie duality and ego. There is nothing that isn't part of the complete whole. When the little 'i' merges into the big 'I' then you are really smiling!
I just caught the end of this Nature Gift short ad for gifting sets and was bowled over by the rawness. OK it's a bit contrived getting there, and they've jumped through hoops to get the brand in but the empathy created still struck me as one of those little things in Thai TV advertising that is creeping in as much as possible. Unexpected small rule breaking flourishes. I wish I had a copy of the soap powder ad that sends up the entire genre by basically messing around with template creativity and saying yeah it's a crappy ad so we're not going to bore you shitless, without a wink and something a bit wacky.
I try to spend as much time as possible finding opinions that disagree with mine and that are substantive. I wouldn't want people to assume that I'm a knee jerk leftist even though I stand totally against the corrosive effect that Fox news has on the American people. I also don't like Hannity as like O'Reilly he's an unpleasant bully. He makes it so easy to forget that when interviewing erudite company he can raise his game a little, though he's most certainly not Copernicus. Don't even get me onto CNN's toothless dog.
However here are two of my pet hates and Charles Krauthammer, who I think like Clinton and Obama are still ignoring the intellectual pre-industrial economic mammoth in the room. Robert Reich (who is demonstratively brilliant) probably thinks like I do but I totally disagree on his economic purism timing. I sense he misses the arena. Seeing Bill and Obama on his old sparring ground yesterday. This isn't surprising but it is most definitely human and forgiveable.
Though straight after this should there be some kind of disclosure that doesn't pop the system? *
Yeah. Go for it. Tell the American people why 2 trillion in the bank lends no succour and that the Pentagon and black hole budgeting CIA are both largely pernicious anachronisms and would best be merged into some sort of post industrial think tank/incubator/global relief mechanism hired out to the U.N at fair rates.
After all, those anonymous chaps have already run the globe ragged through domination by neo-liberal failed shock doctrine economics. It's also purely State owned so if that kind of unthinkable thinking were to happen, I'd get to call it what it really is neo-Marxism for the 21st century. That's the Kafkaesque world I'm forced to live in.
Anyway. Fox and reasonable analysis...Blow me.
* Personally I say pop the system but I'm more resilient than most and don't have as much baggage to weep over. However that's not a particularly fair basis when considering others, and it's a bit more complex than yay or nay.
