Roykirk’s Enterprises

There are days I just love Harlan Ellison, and there are days that I don’t. Today is a day I do.

From Unca Harlan’s Art Deco Dining Pavilion:

HARLAN ELLISON ON THE WRITERS STRIKE SETTLEMENT

YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO RE-POST THIS ANYWHERE:

Creds: got here in 1962, written for just about everybody, won the Writers Guild Award four times for solo work, sat on the WGAw Board twice, worked on negotiating committees, and was out on the picket lines with my NICK COUNTER SLEEPS WITH THE FISHE$$$ sign. You may have heard my name. I am a Union guy, I am a Guild guy, I am loyal. I fuckin’ LOVE the Guild.

And I voted NO on accepting this deal.

My reasons are good, and they are plentiful; Patric Verrone will be saddened by what I am about to say; long-time friends will shake their heads; but this I say without equivocation…

THEY BEAT US LIKE A YELLOW DOG. IT IS A SHIT DEAL. We finally got a timorous generation that has never had to strike, to get their asses out there, and we had to put up with the usual cowardly spineless babbling horse’s asses who kept mumbling “lessgo bac’ta work” over and over, as if it would make them one iota a better writer. But after months on the line, and them finally bouncing that pus-sucking dipthong Nick Counter, we rushed headlong into a shabby, scabrous, underfed shovelfulla shit clutched to the affections of toss-in-the-towel
summer soldiers trembling before the Awe of the Alliance.

My Guild did what it did in 1988. It trembled and sold us out. It gave away the EXACT co-terminus expiration date with SAG for some bullshit short-line substitute; it got us no more control of our words; it sneak-abandoned the animator and reality beanfield hands before anyone even forced it on them; it made nice so no one would think we were meanies; it let the Alliance play us like the village idiot. The WGAw folded like a Texaco Road Map from back in the day.

And I am ashamed of this Guild, as I was when Shavelson was the prexy, and we wasted our efforts and lost out on technology that we had to strike for THIS time. 17 days of streaming tv!!!????? Geezus, you bleating wimps, why not just turn over your old granny for gang-rape?

You deserve all the opprobrium you get. While this nutty festschrift of demented pleasure at being allowed to go back to work in the rice paddy is filling your cowardly hearts with joy and relief that the grips and the staff at the Ivy and street sweepers won’t be saying nasty shit behind your back, remember this:

You are their bitches. They outslugged you, outthought you, outmaneuvered you; and in the end you ripped off your pants, painted yer asses blue, and said yes sir, may I have another.

Please excuse my temerity. I’m just a sad old man who has fallen among Quislings, Turncoats, Hacks and Cowards.

I must go now to whoops. My gorge has become buoyant.

Respectfully, Yr. Pal, Harlan Ellison

You tell ‘em, Unca.

Tags: Entertainment, Humor, Politics by Roykirk
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Many thanks to Warren Ellis for pointing out that Valentine’s Day, like all Christian holidays, was co-opted from yet another pagan festival that celebrates life.

Tags: Humor, Religion by Roykirk
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Something definitely more lighthearted to counteract the doom and gloom of my recent posts.

Paramount released the teaser trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull today. I can’t believe it’s been almost 20 years since The Last Crusade.

Along with Harrison Ford, you’ve got Shia LaBeouf as Indy’s son via Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen returns), John Hurt as the oft-mentioned but never-seen Abner Ravenwood, and best of all, Cate Blanchett as the main villain. All in all, something to look forward to this summer.

I hope this little taste of Indy’s long-awaited return whets your appetite. I know it has mine. Also, watch one of the Quicktime HD versions, if your computer is capable.

Tags: Entertainment, Movies by Roykirk
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…How many steps have we taken so far?

Naomi Wolf had an opinion piece in the UK’s Guardian newspaper back in September ‘07 outlining the steps that fascist groups and dictators across history and the world have taken in the past in order to rise to power, and she makes the argument that Americans have allowed Bush to take many of those same steps to varying degrees.

When I first read it back then, it was chilling, for her document laid out all the fears that have been troubling me ever since September 11, 2001. Even then I and many others felt that catastrophic event would be used to excuse egregious future crimes, and the last 7 years have only brought those prophecies to horrid fruition.

The oxymoronic Patriot Act, the suspension of habeas corpus, military tribunals, and this week the ex post facto pardon of telecom corporations who participated in the warrantless spying on all Americans. All these events are steps, large or baby ones, towards the eventual abandonment of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights enshrined therein.

That the highest judiciary in the land seems silent on most of these issues, or gives tacit approval to Bush’s actions, should send a dagger of ice-cold fear into every American’s heart.

Read her step by step blueprint for the end of freedom, and tell me you can’t agree.

UPDATE 2/14/08 11:20am:

Wired’s Threat Level has an excellent summation of what took place during the Senate vote to gut the 4th Amendment. You can also see exactly who voted for or against the bill, and they point out that both Hillary and Obama didn’t vote on the bill at all. Interesting.

Tags: Human Stupidity, Politics by Roykirk
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The other day I mentioned an article my brother pointed me to on Salon from a woman who felt that Hillary was being unfairly attacked by pundits from all over the spectrum. Well, today comes a differing opinion from a woman who says “I don’t consult my fallopian tubes before I check a ballot” but instead votes on the actual actions of the candidates.

I have to say she makes a very strong case for more reasons why Hillary is not a candidate of any sort of change and instead represents still more erosions of the liberties we fought for over 200 years ago. It doesn’t hurt that she also makes the point that Ron Paul is pretty much the only candidate with demonstrable principles that go far beyond the media’s one-note labeling of him as the “anti-war candidate.”

Please also note, however, that she also puts the Obama-worshipers in their place with a very current example of his swaying to the political winds. A short, fascinating read. Check it out.

UPDATE 4:29pm PST: A Hillary fan has written an open letter asking her to step down. I disagree with the writer on several points, foremost among them this:

However I am finding, right or wrong, many citizens of this country seem to react to you on an emotional level. Emotional, not practical. They can’t seem to see your record. They can’t seem to see your policy. They just hear or read “Hillary” and venom or praise spews.

At least in my case, and I am sure many others’, I very much react to her on a practical level. I have heard her words, I have seen her record, and I have come away singularly unimpressed and at times repelled. She stands for nothing but her own ambition and bends “like a reed in the wind” in whichever direction the politics blow. She’s never shown me that she stands for anything except, perhaps, her singular belief that people need to have government take care of them because they are too stupid to do it for themselves.

However, before this starts to swirl downwards into a Hillary-bashing drain, some of the writer’s points are well-taken, specifically her assertions about what this country needs right now. All in all, an interesting read, though I think others will disagree with her on several counts.

Tags: Politics by Roykirk
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Almost like a Keane painting: cute…

…but underneath lurks something not quite human.

But those eyes are so compelling, they can’t help but draw you in.

Anyhow, I present my daughter, about 7 months old, after swimming with her mother.

This is how children survive. They can be the most strident, demanding creatures you’ve ever encountered in your life, but one look like this and a rational, reasoning, even logical adult is utterly disarmed.

Would that all the world’s fanatics could see their potential victims, up close and in their face, before they they proceed with their irrational and futile actions.

Click the photo for the larger version.

Tags: Hope by Roykirk
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…let’s give many thanks to my brother for pointing me to this website for getting a human customer service agent on the line, rather than endless automated voice prompt trees that loop you back into the ninth circle of hell.

Tags: Hope by Roykirk
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Bush and his coven can drone on and on about how we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here, but, if you agree with what Denzel Washington says in the following clip…

…it’s already over. We’ve lost.

I remember watching the eerily prophetic movie The Siege when it first hit DVD, 2+ years before September 11, and being frightened by it then, for I could readily see how easy it would for its events to play out in the real world.

The military isn’t roaming the streets yet, and martial law hasn’t been declared, but the torture and treatment of all Muslims as second-class citizens has already begun. And to be honest, McCain or Clinton, I don’t think the course of this country towards the police state will change no matter which is in charge.

Ben Franklin’s words are more true today than they were in 1759: “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

If you can, find a copy of 1776 on DVD and be reminded what we fought to escape from all those years ago.

Tags: Human Stupidity, Politics by Roykirk
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About a month ago, well before Super Tuesday and yesterday’s primaries, my brother sent me a link to an article defending Hillary Clinton, questioning those who seem to hate her so much. At the time, while I agreed that in some cases the hatred seemed slightly manufactured by some, I am one of those who finds her to be patently false and wholly at the mercy of her political ambition and self-righteous belief that she should be America’s nanny—representing the very worst aspect of government, left or right.

It is because of her, Bush, others like them, and the direction of American political thought since the War Between the States that I long ago realized that I am libertarian in almost every aspect of my own beliefs, hence my support for Ron Paul, despite my knowledge that he held little hope of winning a Republican nomination. But just his presence and the modest success he’s had getting his message heard gives me some kind of hope, cynic that I am.

Anyhow, lest you fear this will descend into some kind of Ron Paul lovefest, I wanted to point out a New York Times Opinion article by Frank Rich that is one of many recent writings from various quarters that point out just how ethically bankrupt the Clintons are when it comes to her naked ambition to grab the White House. Frank doesn’t even need to point out problems with her ideas or policy or past actions as a Senator, only her underhanded and sleazy tactics that are coming to the fore as her grasp on the previously inevitable nomination starts to slip.

It’s not too long a read, but certainly summarizes nicely the reason I and so many others find her the last candidate we’d ever vote for. Perhaps we’ll see this sort of thing coming from Obama…but I doubt it. If anyone wonders why she is so polarizing, and why having her battle against McCain in November will put the Republicans back into the presidency again, enjoy…if you can.

Tags: Politics by Roykirk
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Browsing my favorite news site, Digg, yesterday, I came across one of the many images the site links to each and every day. Usually they’re quite funny, but not this one. No, this one hit me hard, and I’m still trying to figure out why. The image by itself, when I first looked at it, seemed like just one of hundreds of photo we see every day from lands where emotion rules and rationality is unknown. But then I read the caption…and looked at the photo again…and just stared, a deep pain welling inside me.

I think it was the context: slightly younger than my own son, coming back from his first school. Combined with the child’s wide open eyes, his arm lifted (probably by his mother), making him seem alive, but knowing that he was gone. I knew what the mother was feeling.

I haven’t shown the photo to my wife.

Sorry to make my first true post such a downer, but this journal will be about those things that touch me in some way: funny, sad, true, ridiculous, or the pathetically absurd.

And if you want more, to see those stories that might not make it to this journal but I still find of interest, you can see all the stories I dugg on my Digg profile page.

Tags: Human Stupidity, Religion by Roykirk
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