On a clear day...

From the cheeseburger people:.

Department of Book Reports: In Appreciation

"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon."

James Crumley died this past week, one of my all-time favorite authors. David McCumber gave him a fine send off in the Seattle PI. I can't say I knew him well, or we were best buds, but I did get to meet him once. And I did get to go drink at Charlie's years ago.
The New York Times ran an obit this week also. I knew this day would be coming, but, Damn.

Crumley was an important American author. Look to any reference on Crime Fiction and you'll find his ardent fans. This is western Noir at it's finest. One to Count Cadence is still considered a seminal Viet Nam novel.

His mysteries revolved around C. W. Sughrue ("Sug" as in "sugar" and "Rue" as in "Rue the God Damned Day") and Milo Milodragovitch, and a motley crew of regulars who would wander in and out of the novels. Cocaine, booze, weed; check, all here, in abundance. But, quite like a Hopper painting that shows us this so plainly, you can relate, and really wish you were able to stumble down to that bar, grab a stool, and just sit there staring into the mirror over the barback. Listen in to that cranky old fart over on the end. He's got some really good stories. I could stay there all night.

When Mexican Tree Duck was published, I and many other fans would mutter behind our hands "not as good as Last Good Kiss, but ya gotta read it". Looking back today, sure, it could have been better edited, but I haven't seen anything come down the track the way this did:

"When the 3:12 through freight to Spokane hit the East Meriweather crossing, the engineer touched his horn and released a long, mournful wail into the wet, snowy air of our second early fall storm in Western Montana. It sounded a hell of a lot like the first note of a Hank Snow ballad."

Montana has an enviable amount of really good authors. That also is to James Crumley's credit. Most all of them will credit the writing class they took with Crumley for inspiring them to go on, to write, to produce astounding books that transcend place.

Penintent Liberal Lesbian has copies over at her day job, and I'm sure your local Fine Independent Bookstore would love to show you more!

Jackson Street Books Pre-Order your signed and personalized copy of Vex Streeter's Scripting Your World now, delivery in 2 weeks, or so.

Sarah Palin's Gay Friends

I believe Sister Sarah's claim to have had friends who were the gay, and I think it's unfortunate that she can't remember their names. That's why I'm thankful SLOG is helping her to find a new friend who is the gay.

Suspension Suspended

More here.

Who do you trust to work with the Israelites?

Sister Sarah Pain's witch fighting pastor:

The second area whereby God wants us, wants to penetrate in our society is in the economic area. The Bible says that the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. It's high time that we have top Christian businessmen, businesswomen, bankers, you know, who are men and women of integrity running the economics of our nations. That's what we are waiting for. That's part and parcel of transformation. If you look at the -- you know -- if you look at the Israelites, that's how they work. And that's how they are, even today.

or Obama supporter Sarah Silverman:


The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Pam Atlas Decries Charges of McCain Sexisim

Note: I've suspended posting to this blog, so I can work on fixing the economy

Yes Pam, the best way to defend Sen. McCain against charges of sexism is to call Campbell Brown a "SEX TOY to Saudi Masters" and a "Muslim whore that pimps for the jihad."

Sarah Palin vs The Economy

Note: I've suspended posting to this blog, so I can work on fixing the economy.

I'm proud to announce that, like Sen. John McCain, Gov. Sarah Palin has chosen Jesus'General as her platform for communicating in the patriotsphere.

Welcome, Gov. Palin. The keyboard is yours.

--Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Thank you, General.

I'm proud of the contribution I've made to the Palin-McCain campaign thus far. By stumbling over simple interview questions and posing for pictures with old foreign guys, I've demonstrated that I'm every bit as qualified to be President as George Bush was in 2000 (and continues to be, today).

Now it's time to open a new phase of this campaign. A phase where I will use my greatest strengths and take bold actions to solve our nations most pressing problems. By doing so, I will prove that I am more than ready to serve as your president the moment John McCain kicks returns to Jesus (let's just hope it's after the inauguration).

So, let us begin.

In the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and by the authority granted to me by my witch fighting pastor, I rebuke the economy for its treachery. In Yaweh's holy name, I command it to make our beloved mortgage trading industry whole and continue the $15,000/month stipend our faithful assistant, Rick Davis, receives from Freddie Mac; let him continue to influence our presumptive presidency along a path of adjustable rate righteousness.

Gabba gabba hey! Hokey pokey winky wong! Twiddly, widdly, wit, boom, boom!

Campbell Brown, thou art rebuked in all the sacred names of Elohim for refusing to submit to the political will of thine husband, Dan Senor. And in the name of Jesus, King of Kings, I also rebuke thee for thine sharp words concerning me. He shall surely smite thee with emerods, much like he smote the Philistines of Ashdod, Gath, and Bethshemesh.

Parley magoo gagoo gagong! Pompitous of Love! Handaree rangaree chingaree chong!

And in the name of Our Redeemer, Jesus of Nazareth, I rebuke Levi's man-fluids and Bristol's lady parts for causing me embarrassment at the greatest moment of my life. May the Lord, God of Israel, strike both of these wicked children with the same foul affliction Todd brought home after attending that snowmachine convention in Nome.

Awop bop a loobop, a lop-bam boo! Handaree rangaree chingaree chong! Rama lama ding dong!

Amen

Wall Street Goes to Dinner

File this one under A Pail Out for a Bail Out...

++++

The CEO Toaster Compensation Plan

Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL)
United State Senate

Dear Sen. Martinez,

Your statement about the difficulty of limiting CEO compensation in the Authorization To Use Financial Force (AUFF) is absolutely on target. I mean take another look at it. Who could argue with reasoning as tight as this:

While it is very appealing to think about executive compensation as being a part of this, one of the drawbacks to that is perhaps that we would have fewer entities participate in what is essentially a voluntary act.

It's a shame Our Leader couldn't articulate the problem as simply as you do. His spokesman tries to say the same thing but gets tied up by the fact that he doesn't really want to come straight out and say it:

You have to remember, these are not all weak or troubled firms that own mortgage-backed securities. A lot of them are very successful banks and investment houses that have done very well, have been responsible, are holding performing assets that have value. They were not necessarily irresponsible players, and so you have to be careful about how you deal with them.

I guess I can't blame him for trying to finesse it. After all, it's hard to claim this is an emergency if healthy companies will be getting the money too.

And God knows, CEOs deserve the millions of dollars they earn in bonuses as their companies sink into bankruptcy. McCain economics advisor Carly Fiorina will certainly vouch for that. Her $45 million golden parachute allows her to campaign for the Senator full time while HP picks up the pieces of her ruinous leadership.

But, the average American isn't please with the idea of giving companies billions of dollars to "bail them out" while the CEO's are taking tens of millions of dollars in bonuses. They aren't going to go for it.

And it's not going to be easy to find a way to entice healthy bankers to take our handout while forgoing their golden parachutes, but that's what we're going to need to do if we want to get the AUFF passed.

I think the solution is toasters. Remember back when banks would give out toasters as an incentive to get new depositors? We should offer the same to Wall Street CEOs: "Accept our cash and we'll give you a toaster."

But they'll have to be good toasters, not the simple two-slicers you'll find in the average American home. CEOs will want something better. We should consider turning to Halliburton or some other proven friend to build it. I'm sure they could come up with a great toaster, one that'll toast 4 pieces of bread or 6 Toaster Strudels at a time. And I bet they could do it for under $150,000 per unit.

Heterosexually yours, 

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

The Griftkado

Act IV, Scene V: the Lord High Monetary Chancellor, having asked the assembled for seven hundred and fifty billion dollars of the people's money to save the day for a very select few, faces the Monkeys of the High Court in a mock hearing, meant to buy time while a more clever plan is hatched off-stage.

Lord High Monetary Chancellor

It seems there’s been a huff and puff
About the way I strut my stuff
And just so everything is clear
I’ve come to answer questions dear

1st Monkey of the High Court

Your grace, your lord, high governor
The people are a bit perturbed
They say you want to take their gold
And give it to your friends of old

Lord High Monetary Chancellor

What is the question? Ask it, sir
Refute it not, I can concur
If you aren’t absolutely clear:
Just what is your question here?

1st Monkey of the High Court

Forgive me Lord, I practice tact
And sometimes I occlude the facts
But did I get it from you right
You want the cash sans oversight?

All Monkeys of the High Court

You want the cash sans oversight?
Are we just monkeys in the night?
You want it all, and in a flash?
Sans oversight you’d take the cash?

Lord High Monetary Chancellor

Oh, please, you focus on minutia
Those silly facts will soon seduce ‘ya
I know the truth is very sumptuous
But oversight is most presumptuous

2nd Monkey of the High Court

Dear Lord, please help us understand
You want the largest helping hand
For those who got us in this mess
To bail them out is large largesse

Lord High Monetary Chancellor & All Monkeys of the High Court

The economy must now be saved
For those of us who dug the grave
For lobbyists who feed on meat
For men in suits who cruise Wall Street
The tide that rises lifts all boats
Can you believe the shit that floats?
We must assuage the dragon in its lair
For this we sacrifice taxpayers!

3rd Monkey of the High Court

If it please your majesty
How shall I face my constituency?
Will they get a fair return?
Or will they once again be burned?

Lord High Monetary Chancellor

The taxpayers are a noble race
And we exist at their good grace
We, in sackcloth and ashes, hat in hand
Must make them all to understand
The need for cash is quite acute
It puts the gold in golden parachutes
So face the voters and stall with brio
While the rest of us fly down to Rio

ALL

The economy must now be saved
For those of us who dug the grave
For lobbyists who feed on meat
For men in suits who cruise Wall Street
The tide that rises lifts all boats
Can you believe the shit that floats?
We must assuage the dragon in its lair
For this we sacrifice taxpayers!

(All exeunt.)

End of Act IV

++++

Jesus is a Friend of Mine

via SLOG

Colonel Reb could learn a thing or two from Sarah Palin or Why is Rusty Shackleford so Angry

Brian Ferguson
Colonel Reb Foundation
University of Mississippi

Dear Mr. Ferguson;

I was very sad to hear that Colonel Reb has been retired as Ole Miss's mascot. It's particularly tragic now that Sarah Palin is so close to boarding the Natural Causes Express to the presidency. She embodies the very values Colonel Reb embodied--secessionism, treason, white supremacy, and passionate credulity. It's ironic that these cherished heartland values are suddenly now in vogue so soon after Colonel Reb's Appomattox. 

One would think your organization could benefit from this return to traditional confederate values. You just need a compelling story to tell. Fortunately, you already have that story. It's found in the history section of your website. It's the tale of your first mascot, a blind black man you call "Blind Jim." It has everything you need: a black man, the son of slaves, who was brought into the Ole Miss family as a "mascot," or kind of pet, and allowed to sell peanuts forty years before the first black student was forced on the university by outside agitators in the federal government.

Best of all, as noted in the article, Colonel Reb is the "spitting image of Blind Jim Ivy, except for white skin." It's a great way to dodge the racism charges. It's like noting that although you are closely tied to the militia movement, attend a witch-hunting dominionist church, and meet with and do videos for the Alaska Independence Party, you're not really a whacked out White Christian Supremacist.

So there's your story. Now you have to push it. You should consider getting Rusty Shackleford's help with that. Considering all the rage and energy he put into this post at the Jawa Report, he's obviously a Sam Graves conservative--that is he's "backed-up," angry as hell, and has way too much time on his hands.

I'd be glad to contact Rusty for you. Just let me know.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

The McCain Economic Plan

McCain's Economic Plan For Nation: "Everyone Marry A Beer Heiress"

My Inner Frenchman Called

My Inner Frenchman called his senators and congressman about the "Authorization for Use of Financial Force" and made three seditious points:

• No blank check - there needs to be oversight.
• The bill must help people with their mortgages (trickle up economics).
  
• It should be paid for with a tax surcharge on incomes of the wealthiest taxpayers.
  

Here are the phone numbers for your senators and representatives.

Update: Link to phone numbers fixed.

Torturing the Gay Away

President Thomas S. Monson
Prophet, Seer, and Revelator
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Dear President Monson,

I wrote your predecessor, President Hinckley, awhile back after the Church refused to join gentile churches in opposing torture. In that note, I applauded our beloved Prophet for refusing to sign onto a letter backing anti-torture provisions in the 2006 Defense Budget. I thought his response was perfect when he made it clear to the flock that "The church has not taken a position on any proposed legislative or administrative actions regarding torture."

Now, people are asking me why the Church is politically active in measures to deny marriage equality The Gay. Pointing to the Church's decision to be an official sponsor of ProtectMarriage, the people behind Measure 8 in California and the huge amounts of money Mormons have poured into Arizona's Prop. 102, they wonder why the Church can be so against love and so ambivalent about torture.

I'm worried we may be seeing the beginnings of a huge public relations problem. We need to get out there now with our story and put all of this into its proper context. We must tell the public there is no hypocracy here, and that our hatred of The Gay and our love for torture are indeed all part of the same issue: supporting traditional forms of marraige.

It's time to begin trumpeting our success in using forms of torture to turn The Gay into good, God-fearing, heterosexual elders and sisters of the Church. Yes, I'm talking about the aversion therapy experiments conducted at BYU in the Seventies (and perhaps into the Nineties).

We could begin by publicizing the stories of those who participated. As you can see, they are very compelling:

They explained to me that they would place a heparin lock in my wrist and hook an I.V. up to that, and I would be put in a room alone with a phlethesmograph on my penis that would measure my physical arousal so that when I got an erection they would know. Then they started showing me gay pornography. I don't remember if there were films or not, but I do remember stills. I was supposed to go through a stack of photos of nude men and come up with men that I thought were attractive.

No, I was 15! I was only 15 years old. I mean I'd seen like a Playboy before, but I'd never seen sex before at all. They were going to show me this gay pornography and using the I.V. they would inject a drug into me during the gay pornography to make me start vomiting. Then they would switch the pornography over to heterosexual sex and inject a euphoric drug into me to get me to associate euphoria with heterosexuality. I look back on that and think that I would have taken the electric-shock therapy had I known about it since I'm extremely phobic around vomiting.

[...]

Alot of times BYU security would catch people in compromising positions on campus. Those people would have the choice to either be kicked out of school and have their families notified about what they had done or they could go through this therapy. We had quite a few people who were going through it. There were others in the therapy who felt so much guilt for being the way they were or they had been promised that if they underwent the therapy they would be able to marry and have children and they would be turned. Of course they had to have the desire to change, and if the therapy failed which it always did, it was their fault for the failure since they didn't have enough desire.

Anyway, they would come in usually three times a week. I would be behind a glass one-way mirror, and they would be on the other side of it. They had their choice to look at pornographic magazines or watch porno videos. We would tape electrodes to their groin, thigh, chest and armpits. We had another machine that would monitor their breathing and heart rate. If there was a difference in their heart rate when looking at homosexual pornography, we would turn a dial which would send a current to shock them. If they were a new patient, we would use a very low current. From the reaction that I saw there were muscle spasms which looked very painful.

After that was over, we would switch the pornography over so that it was a man and a woman having sex, and we would play very soothing music in the background to try and get the mind to relate to that. For the people that had been doing the therapy longer we turned the voltage way up so that you could see burn marks on the skin and quite often they would also throw up during the therapy.

Here's another account:

Um, hm. And the program was called aversion therapy.

And what did they do in this program of aversion therapy?

He had me go into Salt Lake City and go to an adult bookstore and find pornography that I found erotic, or whatever. And then I had to bring it back to him and he ... . I don't know if it was a BYU photo lab or what, but [the pornography] was turned into slides and then they would put electrodes first on my hands–and I have burns.

You have burns on your hands? Oh, I see those burns.

That's from those. And then they're on my arm and my torso. At first.

What year was this, Jayce? Give me a time frame.

It was '94, the last five, six months of 1994.

[long pause] At first we didn't use the slides or any visual type of stimulation. He just told me to fantasize. And as I was trying to fantasize or whatever, trying to do what he wanted me to do, randomly they would send shocks. And that happened for, like, the first three weeks. And that was about six sessions. And then the slides were ready.

OK, let me see if I understand this. You were told to fantasize male-male eroticism?

Uh, huh.

And then they would send random shocks into your body which caused these scars on your body and on your hands?

Um, hm.

OK. And then what?

[long pause] Then there would be slides. [long pause] There were more electrodes this time and they were on ... . [pause] This is kind of embarrassing. [pause] I mean, they were all ... . I was in a position where they could tell if I was being aroused or not. It was very obvious. And then if there was any kind of arousal whatsoever I would be shocked. And then that happened for about two months.

OK. I'm gonna to ask you a really personal question. Did they also have an electrode on your penis?

Um, hm.

And is there scar tissue there?

Uh, huh. [long pause]

That happened for at least eight sessions. Probably actually about sixteen because it was two months that we did just that form. And then the electrodes were all [in] the same places, but then I had the control that when I was being shocked I could press this plunger or button or whatever and a picture of a woman would come up and the electrodes would stop.

OK. Now, this took place on BYU property?

Um, hm.

OK. Where at? Do you know?

It's the Smith Family Living Center. It was in the basement.

In the basement?

Um, hm.

At BYU?

Um, hm.

The last two months, that's what we would do. And that was only once a week. And then one day I was driving to Provo and I just couldn't get off the exit. I couldn't do it anymore. And so I just turned around and went back to Ogden and told my bishop that I was fine, that I was OK and he said, "If there's anything left, your mission will fix that." And so I left for my mission ... .

Telling these stories serves two purposes. First, it sends a message that being The Gay is so terrible, the Church is willing to scorch a man's little soldier in order to stop it. And second, Jesus wants us to torture people sometimes, so get with the program.

Hey, maybe torture would be useful for missionary work too. Have you considered it? It seemed to work well for the Catholics in Spain.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Elsewhere: My inner Frenchman followed through on this vow and officially became an apostate.

Spiders on drugs

We Gambled. You Pay.

Of course, there are some who think the wealthy do not deserve to take our piece of the American Dream:

...first thing on Monday morning, [everyone] needs to call their Representatives and Senators and say: No. Blank. Checks. For. Crooks.

Be as polite as you can be and don't use bad words. Personally, this injunction may limit the duration of my calls to under a thirtieth of a second, or shorter.
Congressional phone numbers.

Update: Scarecrow has more:

The most important condition to put on any bailout proposal is to impose a tax surcharge on the incomes of the wealthiest Americans to pay the bailout's cost.

And just go read Avedon.

Two Years Have Passed and Not a Thing Has Changed

The coincidental confluence of two entirely separate events has inspired a rather unusual sermon today. First is the release of results from a rather disturbing poll: 57% of white evangelicals say that the use of torture is "sometimes" or "often" justified. The "good news" here is supposed to be the fact that this drops all the way to 43% when evangelicals are reminded of the "Golden Rule." In other words, when forced to think about themselves being tortured instead of faceless foreigners, a small majority of white evangelicals are able to be selfish enough to oppose torture. That's the good news!

I've already written about this poll in more depth on my own site, so let's move on to the second item: this is just about my second anniversary posting sermons here! Yes, that's right, I've been posting here just shy of two years — and over 90 sermons are available here, now. I was looking back over the list of sermons with thoughts about creating an index of them and I took a closer look at the first ones I posted. My first thought was "Wow, I posted two a day to begin with? I don't even remember it — that sure didn't last long."

My second, third, and following thoughts were fairly unprintable...because in light of the first item above, they are as relevant now as they were then: not a damned thing has changed. I could publish those images and that text today without any of it seeming dated — in fact, that's precisely what I'm going to do. It might seem like "cheating" to simply republish something old, but given the confluence of events here I think it's appropriate. Also, I rather hope that the number of readers has grown at least a little bit over the past two years so these old images will be new to them.

I'm only reproducing the small versions here and clicking on them won't open up the large versions like they usually do. Instead, clicking on the images or the titles will take you back to the original sermons published two years ago. Once there, you can open up the large images by clicking on the small images included in the original sermons. I hope you find them as provocative, disturbing, and even upsetting as they were originally. If they don't bother you, then you simply aren't paying close enough attention.

 

_{Image © Austin Cline
Original Poster: Wikipedia
Click for full-sized Image}
Modern Crucifixion: American Empire and the War on Terror

 

_{Image © Austin Cline
Click for full-sized Image}
Where in the World is Jesus Christ? Finding Jesus in a Christian Nation’s Acts of Brutality & Torture

 

_{Image © Austin Cline
Click for full-sized Image}
Exchanging Chains for Liberty: We Must Abandon the Old Standards and Create New Lines Between Good and Evil