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At left: a very colorful Page of Cups.



Lots of great reading out there, and I can barely keep up.

Here's a sampler of goodies you may have missed:

[] Arkansas Republican endorses death penalty for children (Raw Story) In case you wonder, candidate Charlie Fuqua got this straight from Deuteronomy 21:18-21.

So if you disagree, talk to God about it, okay?

[] Woo hoo, it's Conspiracy Theory time! Elections bring them out of the woodwork as little else does. AlterNet gives us 10 Conspiracy Theories Hatched by Conservative Fearmongers As Election Day Nears, which is entertaining enough that I hope to cover a couple of these on my upcoming radio show.

As a South Carolina Green Party member in good standing, my hands-down favorite is "The Green Plot to enslave the world":

Agenda 21, a little known and non-binding resolution adopted by the United Nations, is viewed by some on the right as an attempt to control the lives of people throughout the world by regulating everything they do. Amongst their paranoid fears is that Agenda 21 will cede U.S. sovereignty to the U.N. and a one-world government. The truth is that Agenda 21 is a set of principles to guide the development of practices to preserve a sustainable environment for future generations. It is entirely voluntary and was agreed to by the U.N. in 1992 and signed by President George H.W. Bush.

But to hear doomsayers like Glenn Beck put it, it will “suck all the blood out of [our communities], and we will not be able to survive.”

[] My friend JW finally had the daughter I foretold for her and her partner in their Tarot readings. Alright! Our hearty Deadhead congratulations go out to both of them, as well as lovely big sister LM (whom regular DEAD AIR readers may recall from THIS photo).

To celebrate, a look back at JW's reading, as well as a popular piece I wrote about the Tarot titled, How I learned to stop worrying and love the Tarot.

In addition, here is South Carolina Boy's post about my reading of his cards.

[] Anti-Muslim subway ads that sparked anger in New York are now popping up in D.C. (Huffington Post)

The ads, paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, are supposed to be posted in the U Street, Georgia Avenue, Takoma and Glenmont stations for one month.

The ad reads: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad." They have been widely condemned as promoting Islamophobia.

[] Interesting piece titled Nerds and Male Privilege comes directly on the heels of Annalee Newitz's controversial The Great Geek Sexism Debate. BE INFORMED!

[] A heated exchange about disability and abortion starts with Disability, Prenatal Testing and the Case for a Moral, Compassionate Abortion, which brings an angry response from Tiger Beatdown: Lives worth living: Disability, abortion, and slipshod ethics (comments also mandatory reading). Response/Part II: Disability and Abortion, Part Two: Individual moral choices are not categorical imperatives.

Caution: Very heavy, emotionally-wrenching stuff, but it's what we all ought to be thinking about, as science marches on and genetic testing becomes increasingly commonplace and culturally accepted.

[] Historic Number of Women on Ballots Could Lead to Historic Year for Female Lawmakers (Reality Check) Thanks to my California-droog Barbara! (kiss)

Along these same lines, check out some FEMINIST HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!

[] In further election news, our embarrassing Teabagger Senator, Jim DeMint, has decided to join Rick Santorum in backing Todd Akin for Senate in Missouri. I do find it interesting that Chris Christie wants no part of Akin, and has cut him loose.

Translation: Obviously, Christie has his eye on the proverbial Big Tent (higher office), while DeMint is intent on consolidating his power and influence on the right.

[] No list of links is complete without Glenn Greenwald. I especially recommend last month's one-two punch, CNN and the business of state-sponsored TV news (subtitled: The network is seriously compromising its journalism in the Gulf states by blurring the line between advertising and editorial)... and Conservatives, Democrats and the convenience of denouncing free speech (subtitled: Westerners love to decry censorship aimed at them by Muslims while ignoring the extreme censorship they impose on them). Both from the UK Guardian, and required reading for newshounds.

[] And finally, your long-overdue dose of cute: Panda mama nurses her little baby pandas. AIYEEE! SQUEEE!!! (((dead from cuteness)))

Another Earth

At left: Movie still from Another Earth.

I am recommending the independent movie Another Earth, with several caveats. It's slow, rather strange and ponderous. The good thing is that it's only 92 minutes, so if you are in the right slow, rather strange and ponderous mood, you can easily sit through it with no trouble. It's also very pretty to watch, as the photo at left makes clear. Actress Brit Marling (also co-author of the screenplay) is beautiful and quietly intense. If she wasn't, the whole plot would fall apart.

My main problem with the movie was logic. Dammit, THERE CAN'T BE ANOTHER EARTH up there. One comment left on the film's Internet Movie Database site, sums up my issues in a couple of words: "Um... our tides." Another comment goes further: "Where's the second moon?"

Yes, some of us do get hung up on the details.

It's a nice idea, though, if you can stop asking yourself pesky questions (such as: Didn't these people ever see When Worlds Collide?). You might enjoy the existential question: If there is another Earth, is there another us on that other earth? And what is THAT person like?

William Mapother, Tom Cruise's cousin, is Marling's co-star. When I wasn't shaking my head at the idea of another Earth up there, NOT causing tsunamis and earthquakes, I found myself wondering if Mapother is a Scientologist, too? (Are there Scientologists on the other earth?) Slow, ponderous movies allow the mind to wander all over the place, unfortunately.

Mapother is very good, and you may remember him from that arresting, outstanding movie of about a decade ago, In the Bedroom.

I have always found the idea of a planet taking up a great deal of the sky, to be especially enchanting. I have often wondered what Jupiter or Saturn must look like, as seen from one of their many moons. I am sure it's a spectacular view! Thus, I found the movie-visuals exciting, when I could stop thinking about the illogical lack of earthquakes.

I am recommending the movie for one reason: the ending. Excellent, just plain excellent, and worth the whole 92 minutes.

~*~

I taped tomorrow's radio show yesterday afternoon, and was informed it is my 51st show. I can hardly believe it.

We will be discussing the ongoing clown act that is Rep. Todd Akin, on our radio show tomorrow. Also in the studio (Gregg's basement) will be our Occupy Greenville mentor, Double A Battery! When my show is finally syndicated and I am a big radio star ((grunts for emphasis)), Double A will be a permanent fixture. He is a real inspiration to me.

We also revisited the Trashing of Ayn Rand, which I started on last week's show. (Since Rand was a rape apologist, like Akin, it was a perfect tie-in.)

Hope you will join us. Saturday at 9am here in the upstate on WFIS radio, 1600 AM and/or 94.9 FM on your radio dial. You can also listen online at any time, by going to our radio blog.

Another Daisy Deadhead radio show on the other earth? Well, why not?

Religious Right prays to Moloch (No Escape from Jim Demint, pt. 2)

Wowee Zowee, today everyone is talking about the Family Research Council Action PAC's "prayercast event" (where do they come up with these names?) that our Senator, Jim Demint, attended with the likes of hardcore right-wingnuts Michele Bachmann, Sam Brownback, Todd Akin and Mike McIntyre. MSNBC covered the three-ring circus at some length last night.

Talking Points Memo reports that Dr Dobson also dropped in, to see what condition his condition was in:

James Dobson participated via phone, offering a prayer and seeming to tie the health care bill and the country's overall political direction to none other than the Devil: "I just pray that You will frustrate the plans of the Evil One, and revive us again with conviction and forgiveness. Show us how we can further your cause, Lord and advance your kingdom, and we will be careful to give you the praise. Just begin a revival in our hearts that will restore us as one nation under God."

Wow, silly me, I was just thinking that anyone who wants to deny health care to anyone for any reason will burn in hell for all eternity. But then, I am an adherent of that OLD TIME RELIGION, straight from THE BIBLE, which categorically states that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for Dr Dobson, a very rich man, to go to heaven.

I think they missed that verse.

In any event, the whole thing has me nauseated. Clean hands and a pure heart? (That would leave out politicians, simply by definition, wouldn't it?)

Well, get your barf bag, here it is. South Carolinians will note Jim Demint's reverently bowed head (far left of screen) at around 1:57:



On a purely theological note--as a child, I attended a Free Will Baptist church with my beloved uncle Ernest (R.I.P.), in which everyone started praying out loud simultaneously in the manner of the prayercast-participants at the end of this video. (Also, many Pentecostal churches do this.) I admit, I've always kinda liked the idea behind this tradition, that God can hear everybody at once... but then again, if they are all praying for the same thing, as they are here (they weren't at my uncle's church), then one assumes they could just ask in unison for an end to universal health care, couldn't they?: Dear God, let the people continue to suffer in pain and poverty, without any affordable health care... wait, Daisy asks, startled, which God is this? (Moloch!)*

I am somewhat amazed (okay, a lot amazed) to see this once-pious style-of-worship employed by politicians for right-wing ends (notice they held the prayercast on a Wednesday night, when the most faithful Protestants attend mid-week services) -- just as I would be if I saw Mass or Benediction being used for the same purposes.

Why is this any different than Muslims praying for victory, or any other blasphemous mix of politics and religion? Oh right, they're Muslims and we're not.

These HERETICS are the scum of the earth. (AND they will burn in hell.)


~*~

*I primarily refer not only to the historical Moloch, but to Allen Ginsburg's Moloch:

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the
crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of
sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment!
Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose
blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers
are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo!
Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows!
Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long
streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories
dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose
smokestacks and antennae crown the cities!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch
whose soul is electricity and banks!

YES! That's him!

This is who they are actually praying to. Moloch, who enjoys the illness and pain of working people, as they die right next to Dr Dobson's homes (plural), valued at well over a half-million dollars each. Money he took right out of their pockets, too.

Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs!
skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic
industries! spectral nations! invincible mad
houses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!
They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!

I'd recognize him anywhere.