Your humble narrator took an unofficial blog break, as our beleaguered Occupy the Microphone crew gets things up and running at WMXP. I don't know if we will ever have the kind of podcast we had before (at WOLI), which was up on the net before we even got home from the radio studio. (sigh) I got spoiled.
I will keep you updated on our talk radio adventures, as usual.
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In my meditation room (which is actually my kid's old bedroom! but "meditation room" sounds so much better!), I have some old movie posters, as I briefly mentioned in my old obit of Charlton Heston. One of the movie posters is Risky Business (in fact, it is the same poster in that link). Remember that one? It was before Tom Cruise became a Scientologist and was still cute, funny and charming.
Believe it or not, Risky Business REALLY happened in Toronto this past weekend, only without the call girls. The kids streamed in and trashed a whole mansion!
They are blaming social media, which is the only way 2000 kids (!) could have found the place so quickly and easily. From the Toronto Sun:
When you throw a “mansion party,” promote it heavily on social media and 2,000 of your closest friends show up, there’s a good chance it won’t end well.Video here. Wow.
That’s what happened Friday night when a throng of youth were packed like sardines into a partially-built house on upscale Stanley Carberry Dr. — near Goreway Dr. and Mayfield Rd.
Peel Regional Police quickly shut the house party down before anyone got hurt — but not before some $70,000 damage was done.
“I’m shocked,” Nancy Viveiros said Saturday, as she and her husband stopped by to see the aftermath of the house party their daughter briefly attended.
Gazing at the many broken windows, smashed doors and booze bottles strewn around the property and along the street, the Caledon woman explained her 18-year-old daughter and her friends wisely left the bash soon after arriving.
“My daughter walked in, looked around and told her friends don’t go upstairs because the railing was all falling apart,” Viveiros said.
Her daughter often asks her for a drive when she goes out, but on this night she got a ride with a friend to the party that “everyone at school was talking about.”
Had Viveiros provided transportation Friday night, there’s no way she’d have allowed her daughter to stay.
“She wouldn’t have got out of my car,” Viveiros said. “And I may have advised the police because you don’t want something happening to the kids.”
Police said they began receiving calls for noise complaints around 9:50 p.m., less than an hour after the bash began.
But they were already aware of the party thanks to Twitter.
“A couple of officers went to the address and determined relatively quickly that more units were needed to disperse the crowd safely,” Const. Thomas Ruttan said.
Officers from three divisions ultimately responded and co-ordinated the shutdown, directing vehicular and pedestrian traffic as the partygoers left.
Ruttan said numerous people were also arrested for intoxication and assaulting police.
“Social media is probably not the best place to advertise a party,” he said. “People need to realize how far reaching social media is and how quickly things like this can get out of control.”
The bash was so big that its hashtag #MansionParty began trending on Twitter.
“The homeowner’s son had permission to have a party, but not of this magnitude,” Sgt. Darcy North said.
Neighbours said the 5,000 square-foot home was under construction for a long time, but work suddenly stopped and the house has sat abandoned for several years.
Even without the beer bottles and broken windows, the unfinished house on the huge muddy lot is an eyesore on a street lined with pristine homes, one of which is currently selling for $1.45 million.
One area resident, who didn’t want to be named, said a young man came to his home prior to Friday night to notify him he was having a party “and the music might get a little loud.”
He said “kids” began arriving in droves around 9 p.m. and within half an hour it was obvious the party was out of control.
“It was crazy,” the neighbour said, adding he never did hear the music but the people lining the street were quite noisy.
He was relieved when cops arrived.
“I was ready to phone the police myself,” he said.
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I wanted to organize a demonstration against Senator Tim Scott, when he came to speak at Bob Jones University at the end of April... but nobody else wanted to. And then I got depressed over that. It was another reason for my blog break: I hardly knew what to say. We let Tim Scott come to town and we ... DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. Argh, I just can't stand it.
Nikki Haley fucked us good with Tim Scott. She knew exactly what she was doing.
See, white radicals DO NOT want to demonstrate against Scott and "look racist"--even if he is well to the right of Sean Hannity. Blacks do not want to demonstrate because he is black, the ONLY African-American in the Senate right now. THE ONLY ONE... and for that reason, I guess it does look bad to demonstrate against him, doesn't it? Doesn't it?
So is that tantamount to giving him a free pass to be another right wing swine, or are we going to treat him like Lindsay Graham, Jim DeMint and the others?
I find that I am suddenly (and uncomfortably) understanding the dilemma of the Republicans who want to protest Obama but do not want to be called racist. This is the FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT, and we always have to be aware of that. We must always be aware of the racist, colonialist history of the USA. But... but... but... WHAT ABOUT WHEN THEY SCREW UP? WHAT ABOUT THAT?
I have never backed down from my legendary Haleyating, and the fact that she is the first woman (and nonwhite) governor of SC, has never stopped me from trashing Governor Haley. But I know it does keep the national media from scrutinizing her as carefully and as completely as they should. (It drives her ex-boyfriend Will Folks crazy.)
What to do? Ideas?
Here is the video of Senator Scott at BJU, which I did not listen to. Nor will I. But you might be interested.
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Speaking of Charlton Heston: SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE! And do you know, some guy has honest-to-God named his nutritional drink SOYLENT? Seriously, its in the New Yorker, so it must be true.
Check out the story of SOYLENT and Bob Rhinehart, who is readable and interesting. And I actually agree with this:
Soylent has been heralded by the press as “the end of food,” which is a somewhat bleak prospect. It conjures up visions of a world devoid of pizza parlors and taco stands—our kitchens stocked with beige powder instead of banana bread, our spaghetti nights and ice-cream socials replaced by evenings sipping sludge. But, Rhinehart says, that’s not exactly his vision. “Most of people’s meals are forgotten,” he told me. He imagines that, in the future, “we’ll see a separation between our meals for utility and function, and our meals for experience and socialization.” Soylent isn’t coming for our Sunday potlucks. It’s coming for our frozen quesadillas.He can have mine. I think that is a great idea. It would be a solid blow against obesity and waste, and would make us enjoy the "real" food we DO eat, that much more.
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I did not do my usual commemoration for Kent State yesterday, because I decided to give that a break for awhile.
I usually reblog the same thing every year, but it always seems to start fights on Facebook. I am from Ohio, as are many of my Facebook friends, and it seems the people of Ohio have NEVER stopped arguing over the subject, who did what first, was there a sniper? etc etc... in fact, you can see that the first time I ever posted it, the fascist-apologists came out of the woodwork in short order. That first post earned me a troll that latched on for months.
I want to honor the day, but I don't like the people that show up. I am taking a break from them this year. Forgive me dear Jeffrey, Allison, William and Sandra.
I always remember you on May 4th, and undoubtedly will for the rest of my life.
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Our Beltane celebration was wonderful on Saturday night, right after the Duck Derby. I hope your Beltane went well.
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FLICKR UPDATE.
