Category Archives: Opinion

Videos From Haiti During and After Earthquake

by Editor | 1 Comment

This video shows shocking scenes of the carnage and death just after the earthquake in Haiti on Tuesday, January 12.  It is extremely graphic.  It shows dead and severely injured people.  This is terrible and tragic news from a desperately poor nation that has no medical infrastructure to deal with the injured.

YouTube‘s CitizenTube Channel is maintaining an updating playlist of videos taken on the ground in Haiti just after the earthquake and during rescue attempts.

You can donate to the Red Cross International Response Fund.  Also, giving blood is always one of the very best things you can do because it fills the blood banks and can be used almost anywhere.

You can also donate to Doctors Without Borders, which is putting medical personnel on the ground in Haiti to assist in saving lives.

One extra and disgusting note: on his Christian Broadcasting Network today, televangelist Pat Robertson told viewers:

And you know, Christy, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it, they were under the heel of the French, uh, you know, Napoleon the third and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the devil, they said, we will serve you, if you get us free from the Prince, true story. And so the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free, and ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor. . . the Island of Hispaniola is one island cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti, on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is, is, prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty, same Islands, uh, they need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God. And out of this tragedy, I’m optimistic something good may come, but right now we’re helping the suffering people, and the suffering is unimaginable.

I’m going to be very clear about something.  What this awful man is saying is truly disgusting and belongs back in the Middle Ages.  This is deeply primitive and racist thinking which is an embarrassment to our nation.  If you are watching this creep on television, please seriously reconsider what you are doing.

Transportation Security Agents Want Nude Photos of Children at Airports

by Editor

Many airports in the United States and the United Kingdom have installed new full body scanners.  They are easy to spot.  You walk in and a security guard tells you to raise your arms out to the side.  Then what happens is they take a naked photograph of you.  Naked.  Nude.  Bare-assed.  Birthday suit.  Free as the wind blows.  Exposed.  Porno.

Why porno?  Because they take naked pictures and look at them.  They want to do it to children too.  And guess what?  In the U.K. it has suddenly been noticed that taking naked pictures of children in airports violates anti-child porn laws.  You bet.  Think about it.  Your kid in the machine.  Arms up in the air.  Being photographed naked through his or her clothes.  The TSA claims that a single operator in a booth will view the naked photos of boarding passengers and children.  Fine.  So think about that.  A little fat guy sitting in there with his sandwich and his can of Coke watching you and your kids naked.  Enjoy that image?  Still want to fly?  Or would you rather just drive now?

No one anywhere has the right to look at our naked bodies just because we are getting on an airplane.  No one.  I certainly will not enter one of these invasive machines under any circumstances.  I think that airline passengers wherever they might be should absolutely refuse to walk into these things.  That will create chaos and slow things down until these hysterical security people back off with the nude photos.  Causing an uproar about this is probably the one thing that will stop the roll-out of these machines.  President Obama may in fact expedite the increased use of these things. Well, he’s the bright bulb who’s hiding photos of U.S. military torture practices and now he wants nude photos of us and our kids.  Cool guy, huh?

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calls these things the ‘naked machines.’

In many airports the machines are voluntary and offered as an option to avoid a pat-down.  Not for long.  The TSA wants these naked photos and they want them really bad.  Have you met some of these TSA agents by any chance?  My god!  They are as dumb as posts.  I met one a year ago at Los Angeles International Airport in the parking lot.  She said she was lost.  Lost!  She couldn’t find the terminal building.  I had to literally walk her through the airport to find her work station.  I was just a passenger on my way somewhere.  She was totally lost and completely at my mercy.  I could have led her anywhere and stolen her badge.  Trust me, if you can’t find the terminal at LAX, there’s something seriously wrong with you.  That is the level of training these people are receiving.  Another time, just months ago, I gave the finger to a TSA agent who tried to jump in front of me while boarding a crowded shuttle bus.  He got on his phone and called airport police, saying that he had a dangerous passenger who had given him and his officers the finger.  Four police cars showed up.  Guess what happened when the officer in charge listened to the irate TSA guy.  He smiled at him, then turned to me and said, “Sir, would you be interested in pressing any charges against the TSA?”  I said, “No thanks, but it’s nice to know that a cop understands I’m allowed to give the finger to the TSA.”  He said, “If you change your mind call me at this number.”  Then he handed me a card!  He said there were lots of complaints about the TSA people and that his officers were sick and tired of dealing with them because they didn’t understand any of the laws.  And now we are asked to trust these TSA nitwits with naked photographs of ourselves and our children?  Are you kidding?  Seriously?

Freedom of Expression? Really? When Was the Last Time You Heard a Slave Speak Freely?

by Editor

I found this Amnesty International video over at Silliman’s Blog today. It’s about the power of words to help defend freedom of expression around the world.  I’m all for that.  But can you take me seriously as a wealthy member of the Western world’s corporate structure?  The Amnesty video mentions a journalist jailed for ten years in China simply for sending an email.  So let’s stop and think for a bit about this ‘freedom of expression.’ Take China as an example.  The Chinese are essentially slave labor for the entire Western world.  They make our shirts, pants, toys, radios, shoes, dinnerware, jackets, telephones, etc.  They produce almost every single solid object you will touch during your day.  Everything.  They take their instructions from our corporations and they build these things for pennies a day.  They are slaves.  No doubt about it.  Their government is simply middle-management working for us.  So, while we may pretend to be interested in freedom of expression, we most certainly do not want our slaves talking freely.  Slaves who can speak their minds will gain their freedom and their hourly wages will increase.  They will no longer be our cheap labor – our slaves.  They will become expensive free thinkers just like us.  Our corporations and our politicians do not want freedom of expression for China under any circumstances whatsoever.  Morgan Freeman’s blazer was quite possibly made by a Chinese slave making 30 cents an hour.  When the Chinese decide that they want to fight for their freedom, they will be fighting us.  The world will change when the Chinese people shoot their leaders and lift their wages.  You think you’ve seen a global economic crash?  Just wait until our corporations can’t pay for their slaves in China anymore.  The bottom line has not changed for at least three hundred years: the world economy cannot function without slavery.

So the Amnesty video asks us for our words to help in the cause of freedom.  I’ve just written some.

Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is a Beacon For a New Decade

by Editor

Read the following remarks at your own risk.  The post begins one way and finishes in another.

The online film journal Senses of Cinema has an excellent essay by Pedro Blas Gonzalez called Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: An Existential Odyssey.  He examines 2001: A Space Odyssey from an existential viewpoint.  He focuses primarily on astronaut Dave Bowman’s journey in the film toward not only a far-flung physical destination, but also his journey as a human being on a path toward knowledge, an unknown future and ultimate change or evolution.  I’ve always viewed the Bowman character as being exceedingly emotional and noble in spite of the fact that he barely moves a facial muscle or changes his vocal tone.  He seems on the surface to be little more than another machine on board the giant Jupiter-bound space ship.  But he is in fact full of tiny, barely perceptible emotions and concerns that make him perhaps the greatest representative character for the human species in film history.  The Bowman character completes his mission of discovery by surmounting incredible obstacles, included the most powerful example of artificial intelligence ever devised by humankind.  But he does this without ever losing his capacity for anger, despair, love, fear, or wonder.

We’ve lived through what I consider to be the single worst decade in the history of the United States, including the time of the Civil War.  In 2000, the country willfully elected to the presidency the most uneducated, unintelligent, disgusting, drunken, irresponsible, uncaring, warlike, criminal and religious fanatic in its history.  The damage done to our own self-image, to our sense of wonder in the face of the magnificent unknown, to our drive forward technically, scientifically, artistically, and morally, to our own self-respect and our dignity in a world teeming with slavery and murder and starvation – well this damage is going to be exceedingly difficult to repair.  We’ve seen the drive for knowledge turned into something that is suspect, something that religion should argue with and fight at every turn.  This is the legacy of the first decade of the twenty-first century.  The tragic crime committed by half of the population of the United States to elect – twice-over – the closest thing to an authoritarian leader we’ve ever had will not be wiped clean by voting for new candidates.  These awful people are among us.  They work with us in offices, in grocery stores, on farms, selling insurance, selling  cars, investing on Wall Street.  They are all around us and they are waiting to destroy again.  They want us to be dumb and mute.  They want us worshiping in their churches.  They want women to answer to them for how they use their bodies.  They want us to ignore the greatest scientific thoughts ever had and to replace them with tall-tales from an ancient book of children’s stories called The Bible.  It has been my mission over the past year to fight these people and to rid this web site of them (thousands and thousands of them, by the way), and to break their web links by using aggressive and insulting language at every possible turn.  I freely mix children’s stories and games with brutal assaults on this ignorant and dangerous population within our nation.  After 15 years of experience with children’s web sites, I have decided that they are rubbish.  They serve little purpose and make a pretense at wholesomeness and clean language which only does a disservice to our children who must grow up with the strength and knowledge to eradicate the foolishness that has prevailed over the past decade.  I have no concern for who I may insult, including my own authors who may or may not want their content removed because of my strong views.  My candle is a blowtorch and I turn it on barbarians with joy.  The only effective way to fight them is to get excited about discovery and knowledge again –  to do what Star Trek says we should do:

…to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before

Yes. We won’t get there by watching imbeciles like James Cameron film tales about white guys invading blue guys.  50-some-year-old adolescents pretending to be great directors don’t give us anything worth knowing.  Artists like Kubrick do.  Films like 2001: A Space Odyssey do.  We need to take this next decade and use it to elevate ourselves beyond and out of reach of the poor lost savages we see around us driving their pick-ups, their SUVs, thumbing through their Bibles and Korans, and going to movies like Avatar.  Let’s try thinking again.  Go rent 2001.  Watch it.  Wonder.  Think.

Obama Wants Our Money for Insurance Companies Just in Time for Christmas

by Editor

Hey man, I’m a lifelong Democrat and I have always voted for liberal causes and I truly believe that we suffered under 8 years of despotic rule by an unintelligent baboon of a criminal in George Bush.  But I think we got taken and voted for an insurance salesman in 2008.  President Obama has done exactly four major things since taking office: He’s given billions of dollars to his friends on Wall Street.  He’s bought a crappy car manufacturer.  He’s protected torturers in the U.S. military and Bush administration from prosecution.  He’s steadfastly refused to lead the world in emissions controls.

And now he is trying to take our money and give it to his friends in the health insurance industry.

When this man ran for office he sounded like a voice of the people – of the less advantaged.  Apparently, that is easy to fake.  He now wants a health reform bill in which every American citizen is required by law to purchase health insurance from… get this… a private insurance company!  The very companies that kill babies by refusing to cover them!  The very companies that charge huge amounts of money for coverage and then yank it out from under you as soon as you get sick.  Those companies!  This a-hole of a president wants to make us criminals if we don’t give these people our money to purchase their scam health insurance policies.  You’ve got to be joking me!  Right?  He’s serious!  He’s limp-wristedly telling all of us that this health care reform bill is better than no bill at all.  Rubbish.  He’s a jerk and he will not be reelected under any circumstances.  When a Democratic president loses people like me, man I gotta be honest with you, he’s in deep doodoo.  There’s no coming back from that.  I’m offended, disappointed, disgusted, angry… and I’m looking for a new candidate.  Possibly a new political party.  The Democrats equal Joe Lieberman – shifty, fraudulent, elitist, and wholly owned by corporate business interests.

Here’s our jerk in chief talking about how there must be a public option for health insurance just several months ago!

Message to President Obama: Pack your things.

Henry Miller Hated America – Even Before Bush

by Editor | 2 Comments

Henry Miller hated America. So he moved to Paris and then, eventually, moved back to the U.S. In this 1969 television interview, he says he thinks the end is near for America. He was right. Bush ended it in 2000. We just don’t realize it yet. We’ve elected an insurance salesman to the presidency and we think he’s going to change the world. He won’t. The experiment in democracy came to a horrifying grinding failure with the criminal organization of Bush. And some tepid fake hipster bloggers aren’t going to do a damn thing about it either. We need more creeps like Henry Miller who hate America. You can’t fix it if you love it. You’ve got to hate it.

Stupidest Woman in United States Gets Shafted by Fox News

by Editor | 9 Comments

HA HA HA HA HA HA! The stupidest woman in the United States of America has apparently written a ‘book’ about her dimwitted attempts at being a politician. But the very best part of the whole story is that the stupidest television news network in the United States has punked her good by showing a mockery of the cover of her book while trying to promote it! HA HA! I’m still laughing as I write this. It’s hilarious and just so perfect that Christmas has come early this year! Oh yeah! Do it again Fox! Please do it again and again! All the rouge in Macy’s wouldn’t cover up this lady’s idiocy.

Huffington Post Presents Advertiser’s Commercial as News

by Editor

I go over to The Huffington Post, a site that defines the words ‘mess’ and ‘indecipherable’ better than any dictionary could, looking for some news, and I come across a story entitled Secret Oil Rigs in Los Angeles Uncovered.  ‘Ho ho!’ I thought.  ‘Here’s something interesting and probably full of nasty secret pollution and damage to our health by oil companies!’  And of course I went stumbling right into the fake news trap.  Watch the ‘documentary’ above.  Notice how the young fellow doing the talking and walking is dressed kind of down with his jeans and boots.  Notice how the camera has a tendency to swoop to his feet.  To show the boots.  A lot.  The documentary, which purports to uncover the hidden oil rigs pumping crude from underneath Los Angeles, is presented on Huffington as being by Palladium Boots.  Unless you click on the link, you don’t realize that Palladium Boots is not the name of a fantastic little production outfit making cool films, but rather a boot company selling… boots.

So now we’ve got a major news and political opinion site putting up an article that looks like news about hidden oil wells in an urban center, but is really an advertisement.  The implication is that we are going to see the documentary confront issues surrounding these wells.  Issues like how many children would die if one of these things blew up next to their schoolyard.  Or how many people each year will get cancer because of oil wells nextdoor.  Instead we get a guy tramping around LA asking insipid non-questions and only hinting at darker possibilities.  We get a smattering of LA history and a lot of amazement at how well-hidden the wells are.  Frankly, if you’re in LA for more than 48 hours and don’t know about the wells, you are hopefully just passing through on your way to Orange County.  The real problem here is that a film produced as a corporate advertisement cannot confront real issues because the producers don’t want to create any real disturbance.  So they dodge all the important questions.  You’d think, after watching this ad, that oil drilling in LA is something just dandy.  Wonderful!  They’re pumping oil from under junior’s school!  Lovely!  We’re all better off for it!

But we’re just watching a boot commercial.  That’s it.  It’s not a cool citizen news report or hip internet filmmaking.  It’s just a company hawking its crappy boots to nitwits who think they are learning something.  A simple illustration of why this is so bad is to imagine your reaction if you found out that I had been paid by this boot company to write this very blog post.  You would never trust me again.  So what does that tell us about the Huffington Post site?

A smarter idea for this fake-news documentary would be to film a barefoot reporter who walks into the oil company executive’s office and politely asks him if he’d like to sit his own children down next to an oil well for a few years to see if they drop dead of cancer.  When thrown out of the oil company’s offices, the barefoot reporter would stagger down the street begging for a pair of shoes.  He’d end up with a pair of pink stilettos that fit him perfectly.  Just like Cinderella.

That would be my fake-news commercial.

Publishers Doomed by Predatory Book Pricing? So what?

by Editor | 6 Comments

John Grisham on NBC’s Today Show discusses his new book, writing novels versus short stories, and so-called predatory book pricing by large retailers like Walmart, Target and Amazon.com.  I like Grisham in this interview.  He’s a good interview and he seems sharp.  He talks about how it’s much more difficult to fix a problem in the middle of writing a novel than to do so with a short story.  So he advises writers to ‘not have a problem.’  The trick is to thoroughly outline your entire novel before you even start to write it so that you know every single thing that happens along the way.  Pretty sound advice in most cases.  Not all.  Some of the greatest novels in the world were written by writers who had absolutely no idea where the novel was going from page one.  It depends on what kind of book you’re writing.  I think his advice is perfectly good for most books that are intended for sale in a grocery store.  Certainly.  But writers should never listen to famous writers.  They’re full of crap.  You write what makes you sweat and drink lots of coffee late into the night and bang your fingers on your keyboard until they hurt.  Or not.  Whatever.  I hate outlines.  Especially in word processors.  Awful things.  They destroy good minds and belong mostly in PowerPoint presentations for corporate managers.  I’m not sure what the hell Grisham is talking about quite frankly.  But then again, I’m not selling thrillers in the grocery store either.

But what mainly interests me in this interview is the discussion about ‘predatory pricing’ by the giant retailers.  Apparently, if you listen to publishers, this spells doom for publishing and book selling as we know it.  When asked what he thinks about his latest book being available for nine dollars at Target, Grisham says:

It’s shortsighted. Short term, they know what they are doing, I think. But if a book is worth $10 then suddenly the whole industry is going to change. You are going to lose publishers and book stores, and though I’ll probably be alright, aspiring authors are going to find it difficult to get published.

Yeah? So what.  So we lose publishers and book stores.  Who cares?  The key in Grisham’s statement is where he says, ‘…and though I’ll probably be alright.’ He means writers will be alright.  The big scary fact of the matter is that we simply don’t give a tiny damn whether or not a publisher prints a book or an author does.  Publishers read, accept, edit, design, print and promote books.  At least they used to.  I don’t care what anyone tells you, but we do not need the editors.  Writers can do that.  You write the book and you edit it and you’re done with it.  Readers are getting used to reading writers without editors.  That’s why blogs are so popular.  No editors.  If you have an editor poking around in a blog, trust me, it’s not a blog.  It’s a corporate front-end.  A writer can also design and print a book.  And sell it.  Writers are publishers.  No reader cares about Penguin.  They care about the guy holding the gun.  The guy holding the gun is put there by the writer.  Writers will make guys, guns and gals forever.  It’s what they do and it’s what readers want.

I don’t care if the guy with the gun says, ‘I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Mr. Peabody.  Smile, because it’s the last thing you’ll ever do.’  Or if he says, ‘I’ve been looking for you.  Smile.  It’s your last.’

The writer can pick.  The editor can go watch Kitchen Nightmares.

There is absolutely no excuse for a writer to work hard on a story, hammering it into existence from nothing, polishing it and making it exactly what he or she wants it to be… and then sit around to wait for some agent or publisher to get back via the U.S. mail so that said writer can be allowed to move on and send out yet another plea for acceptance.  This is old technology.  Twentieth century.  It’s gone.  In this century a writer writes and edits and publishes and sells.  His book can sell in Target for nine dollars or three dollars.  Magnificent.  Literature available to people who don’t make lots of money.  What a novel idea!  If you’re griping about Target selling books for nine dollars, you must not be buying books.  Go watch His Girl Friday and pretend that typewriters still make newspapers.

And you know something else?  The guy with the gun doesn’t care.  He’ll always be there.  He’s not going anywhere.  All the publishers and book stores could burn and all the editors could go to their early graves, and you know what?  The guy with the gun is still gonna getcha.  He’s going to find you wherever you go.  He’s alive.

Reverend Billy Wants New York City and He Can Have It

by Editor | 2 Comments

This is a short documentary called The Gospel According to Reverend Billy, from an outfit called Syndicate of Human Image Traffickers.  This guy looks like a preacher but he’s decidedly against what most preachers seem to be preaching in our angelic little country.  He’s Reverend Billy and he’s running for mayor in New York City.  He thinks Mayor Bloomberg is a corporate Wall Street guy who represents the takeover of the monoculture.  He’s right.  I lived in New York for eight years in the 1980s.  I remember it as being rough, exciting, nervous, overly work-oriented, and dirty.  I visited just a few months ago.  It’s now an open-air mall with a Starbucks and a Gap.  Gee, thanks Rudi Guiliani for your cleanup.  Micky Mouse would feel right at home on Times Square.  New York is also home to the several thousand creeps on Wall Street who are personally responsible for trashing the U.S. economy and running criminal scams on a worldwide scale.  Well, at least we know where they all live, right?  When I lived in the city I worked with many different types of people in many businesses.  I would always give the same advice to my friends and acquaintances who were looking for jobs: Never Never Never work for the money people.  They are vicious and very poorly educated.  I recall working for one of the biggest real estate investors in all of New York.  He owned some of the famous big buildings.  He was also prone to throwing insults around and yelling at employees.  He spent eight hours per day for a full week having meetings in his office about the design for his new closet at home.  On Friday at about 1:00 pm he emerged to ask me about a pile of papers I was supposed to have finished that week.  I had put them all untouched in a pile that I labeled ‘Complete.’  He picked them up and riffled through them for several minutes.  Then he threw them at me and screamed, ‘What the f— do you think you’re doing?’  I picked up the phone while giving him a giant smile and called my employment agency.  I said, ‘I’m going to put you on the phone with Mr.____ and I’d like you to tell him to kiss my ass.’

As I walked down the hall, he was screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘Don’t you people ever even think about sending an a-hole like that over here again!’

Yep, that’s the kind of New York SOB I was back in the 80s.  And I haven’t learned a thing.  I’d still do it on any sunny Friday afternoon.

New York has about as much cultural energy now as Dallas, Texas.  It’s like a zombie apocalypse in Manhattan.  Everyone looks like they’re trudging to the office on a Sunday.  The East Side – Woody Allen’s favorite – is the land of strange men in khaki dockers who buy baskets in small stores.  I’m not sure why Reverend Billy would give a damn about being mayor of a dead city but he’s got my vote of confidence if he wants it.

As for the preacher bit, I’m not sure I like it.  It’s some kind of a joke or then again maybe not.  He likes the vocal patterns of the preacher for sure, but that’s not all of it.  Couldn’t he borrow the vocal technique of the preacher without the costume?  Oh nevermind, that would be Bill Clinton.

Via Coilhouse

Prosecute George W. Bush for Murder

by Editor | 1 Comment

Famed Charles Manson prosecutor and three time #1 New York Times bestselling author Vincent Bugliosi wants former President George W. Bush indicted for murder.  Bush and his vice-president Dick Cheney misled the nation into a brutal and needless invasion of Iraq which has resulted in the deaths of nearly 4,000 American soldiers.  They should both be indicted by a Grand Jury and tried for murder.  Absolutely no question about it.  The string of lies that they told in order to accomplish an invasion and put a sovereign nation under the control of a private corporation is the equivalent of what Nazi Germany was doing in the buildup to World War II.  It was a criminal act against both Iraq and the United States.  It amounts to treason and is punishable in the severest sense.

We need more people like Mr. Bugliosi around.  Everybody’s afraid.  Afraid to offend.  Afraid to be angry.  Afraid to make nasty comments on a web site.  What’s up with this country?  Bugliosi’s aggressive and sustained argument for prosecution is exactly what is needed.
Continue reading …

Cellphones are Destroying People

by Editor | 4 Comments

WareNewYorkerLook at that cover.  Look at exactly what’s going on there.  Makes you almost cry, doesn’t it?  It better.  Because if it doesn’t, then baby you’ve got it coming.  Chris Ware, one of our finest cartoonists did this cover for the New Yorker and made a comic strip for the issue.

I see people crossing streets while typing on their ‘devices.’  I see them driving and sitting in fine restaurants with their dates and they’re answering email and texting.  Makes you want to walk over and plant a big kiss on some guy’s date right in front of him while he texts his mother.  Would serve him right.  People are not even remotely aware of other people anymore.  They drive right through stop signs while texting or chatting on a cell phone.  They wipe out entire families on freeways because they were trying to type, ‘OMG Heeee’s sooooo hot!!!!’

These people are simple dark abominations.  They are fools who understand only how to be dead, dried husks that resemble human beings.  They think they are part of the information overload and that they are multitasking through life.  They’re just obliterating themselves.

Let me put it this way: if somebody sees you using your device, you’re not using it properly.

Sometimes I see a woman in the grocery store answer her cell phone and say something like, ‘Yes, honey,  I’m in the grocery store.  I’m looking for those little pepper things now.’

Do you know why the guy calls her there?  I do.  It’s because he thinks she’s cheating on him because he knows she wants to because he’s a total flaccid drip.  That is why 99.9% of all cell phone calls on the planet are placed.  That is why the cell phone economy works.  It’s nervous people checking up on their significant others to make sure they’re still around.

You know I’m right.  You’ve done it too.  Haven’t you?

But look at this cover illustration and think about trying not to do such an awful thing to your kid this Halloween.  Try hard, because that kid will never forget that little screen in your face.

Message to Pittsburgh Police: We’re All With The Press

by Editor

The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania police have arrested a 41-year-old man for using Twitter to post messages about police movements during the recent protests surrounding the G20 Summit.  Also, FBI agents entered the man’s home in New York City and confiscated computer equipment.  The man is charged with directing others to avoid apprehension.  The police declared the entire protest in Pittsburgh illegal, giving themselves the apparent freedom to charge anyone who helps the protesters.  But anyone could have read the Twitter postings anywhere in the world.  It was a public announcement about what the police were doing in plain sight.  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has stated that if this were happening in Iran or China, it would be condemned as a human rights violation.  It most certainly is.

Police movements are public knowledge.  Posting to Twitter about the whereabouts of police during a protest is simply the publication of public information.  There is absolutely nothing illegal about it.  If I stand on a street corner with my cell phone and Twitter about the movements of police cars, I’d be doing exactly what this man was arrested for.  If those cars happened to be on their way to intercept a criminal, could the police come and arrest me for aiding that criminal?

The problem of police brutality and illegal actions against protesters is wildly out of control all over the nation.  In Los Angeles you have the police violently attacking a peaceful gathering of immigration protesters in MacArthur Park.  The riot police beat up television journalists and smashed their cameras.  Later, the department had to pay over fourteen million dollars to private citizens and has even more to pay to the journalists they attacked.  In Minneapolis the police burst into a home containing the organizers of a peaceful group planning protests for the Republican National Convention.  The police held the organizers at gunpoint, tied-up on the floor for hours, just to keep them away from the convention. These were young highly-educated people with attorneys present on scene being held at gunpoint by a police force with no other intention than to prevent the exercise of their right to free speech and public assembly.

Look at this video from the G20 protests in Pittsburgh.  Pay special attention during the arrest and assault on some protesters at the 5 minute and 12 second mark.  What do you see?  It’s a press photographer clearly wearing some sort of credential on his chest.  He saunters through the melee without concern.  He’s carrying a camera.  The cops ignore him because he’s got that press credential. Then at the 6 minute and 15 second mark you hear a cop arresting someone and he says: ‘You’re with the press?  Who are you with?’  Presumably, he’s going to let a member of the press go instead of arresting him.

I think this video is fascinating because it shows who the free press really is.  Look at what the protesters are doing. They are using cameras against the police. Everywhere you look someone is trying to point a camera at the police.  The press is the people with all the cameras pointed at the cops.  The credentialed press photographer is walking around with his credential.  He’s filming nothing at a moment when protesters are being abused, beaten with sticks, and pepper sprayed.  The press is the other people.  The ones with the cameras who are being chased and beaten.  That’s the press.  We are the press.  We film bovine imbeciles with sticks and helmets and we upload our movies to YouTube.  There’s always something to film when a cop’s got a stick in his hand.  Everywhere you turn someone with a camera is catching some jackass cop murdering or beating someone.  It’s a war.  Cameras against cops.  And the big one hasn’t hit yet.  It’s coming.  Something will snap and when it does it will be covered by the free press on the ground live in the struggle right up close in a cop’s face.

The fact of the matter is that most of these G20 protesters are highly educated literate people. They are vastly more intelligent than the cops. The cops actually know that. It irritates them and they are itching to beat people up.  It’s universal to all police forces.  When you get a crowd of these people in body armor with sticks and guns you have an extremely volatile situation on your hands.  The masks confine the cops’ breathing and vision, increasing anxiety and tension.  These cops don’t think well and they are far more dangerous than the crowds they are trying to control.  I’m all for sticking cameras in their faces.  And Twittering about their movements.  It’s legal.  It’s free speech and it’s protected.

And yessir, Mr. Pittsburgh cop, we’re with the press.

We’re All With The Press.

Philadelphia Thinks Photographers are Terrorists

by Editor

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania thinks people who take photos of its SEPTA trains might be terrorists.  CBS3 in Philadelphia prints what I can only interpret as a serious article about a cashier at a train station who reported two men taking pictures near the train lines as ‘suspicious.’ This cashier actually questioned one of the photographers about his activities while waiting for police to arrive.  The photographer understandably left the scene before the officers could arrive.  I would have too.

How do you take a suspicious photograph?  I’ve always harbored ambitions of taking some suspicious photos but I’ve never quite been able to figure out how.  Do you hold the camera behind your back and then flip it out real quick while pointing the other way and yelling, ‘Hey, look at that!  What is that over there?’  Do you take photos through holes cut out of your pants?

Or do you take photos while sporting a beard?  Or dark skin? Do you have to be male?  What makes a suspicious photographer?

Nothing does.

Look at this:  National Terror Alert posts about it in all seriousness.

I’ve never seen a photograph explode.  I’ve never seen a camera explode.  I suppose one could.  But most terrorists I’ve ever heard of use other things – like shoes.

Photographers actually make people safer.  Wherever you see people taking pictures you have more safety for obvious reasons.  Furthermore, U.S. intelligence agencies have made it very clear that there is no evidence that a terrorist has ever used photography as a means to prepare for an attack. I want photographers in my train stations.  At my bank too.  In the department store… wait, there are cameras in those places.  They’re hidden in the ceilings I think.  Suspicious.  Everywhere we go we are photographed for security reasons.  But as soon as one of us regular old folk take a camera out in a train station we are regarded as ‘suspicious.’

I declare the weekend of September 26 and 27 ‘Photograph a Philadelphia Train Station Weekend.’ Everyone should feel free to descend upon a SEPTA station and take some flattering photos of the helpful cashiers.

Here’s a blog written by a photographer who was arrested in Miami, Florida in 2007 for taking photos of police which is a totally legal act in all parts of the U.S.

The problem is that police across the United States are totally out of control when it comes to people utilizing their constitutional right to free speech.  After all, the taking of photographs is nothing more than the exercise of free speech which is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.  What’s really going on is that all these cameras everywhere, built into cell phones and hidden in sunglasses, are driving police crazy because they get caught doing illegal things.  Cops don’t like cameras.

When I lived in New York City I once pulled out my video camera and filmed a group of perhaps twenty cops who pulled up in front of a brownstone apartment building and ran inside.  One cop ran across the street toward me and screamed, ‘What are you filming?’

I said, ‘You!’

He said, ‘Well, anyone taking pictures when police come on a call is suspicious because sometimes people call us just to film us.’

I said, ‘Yeah, well you never know do you?’

He turned and went back to his job.  And I’ve still got that video.

Suspicious, isn’t it?