Meal tickets under glass

The circus continues.  What was not said here and that which was hinted the first time around are grotesquely obvious now.  The death penalty pundits make the political pundits look tame, tamed by their corporate masters rather like seals on skirted pedestals from one of many rings in which monstrous acts take place every day and every night under the Big Top until there is no memory of a beginning or any end in sight.  MSM prime time punditry would be fired for behaving as outrageously as the dagger death pundits, the couch potato noodle noosers bonbon-ing their ways into stampede wearing flip flops and halter tops, hair rollers and the ever present shopping bags overflowing with cameras, thumb twittering cell phones, awaiting their moment of a lifetime on youtube to imbed into the empty echos of their social networking sites.  Like?  One hundred and fifty million people liked this.  These particular pundits are insatiable and demanding, where's my panel? As the screen breaks up into squares of faces all speaking at once which means they have to yell in order to hear themselves as they are overridden by each others caterwauling.  I was hoping Bose earphones would sponsor this event, you know, those phones suggested to be worn in the presence of heavy machinery such as aircraft interiors.  Bose shows themselves to have somewhat more selective marketing moderation than underwrite death penalty pundits which are actually sponsored exhaustively by that shrill automotive insurance actress delivering her monologues as if she was in the front row at a Stones concert selling deep fried pretzels and pork rinds.

One of the events, many in fact, centered around the vivid technological displays of human decomposition by, heh, decomposition experts.  Who knew such gigs exist?  The crowds went gaga, you could hear the saliva quicken for the drools, quickly hidden by all manner of wipes.  The cries of disgust, the puking, things never before imagined in the actual slide shows of horror beyond all previous horrors as bone after bone was displayed accompanied by the imagined gnashing of animals chewing and dragging the toddler's torso through forested overgrowth.  So what I thought.  What did they think happens to the body in death anyway?  They think it must be pumped with formaldehyde, painted and hair-styled to look alive, gussied up in formal attire, rosy cheeked and merely asleep, sealed in an airtight gilded plastic and metal box six feet under the topsoil and guarded by armed security.  The point being there is big, big money in an industry to keep your true self cosmopolitaned for eternity and the circus audience stamps and screams in mass nausea if somehow one is revealed to have been flesh and blood all along, under all the frills and pretense, under the facade of the magazine mannequin, an unblemished, idealized product of the demographically targeted corporate consumer ... "Why God forbid!  Such a disturbance in thought is sheer blasphemy!"  Like?  Two hundred and sixty seven million people do not like this suggestive dialogue.

We've been all over that issue before, haven't we.  More times than I recall, here and at Su's, anywhere we have the opportunity to spread the word, the death industry is solitary incarceration extreme guaranteeing two thousand or so years from now you'll be dug up and showcased under glass in a natural history museum.  "Isn't he well preserved!  He looks so, so alive.  Beautiful work, taxidermists were real craftsmen then."  It all reminds me of people who have Elk heads on their wall, lacquered fish glued on plaques over the fireplace, the prized and princely testosterone den decor forevermore outdone, one upped by Jibbertongue Rumsfeld and his piece of a 911 airliner displayed on his former office of special plans wall.  A souvenir.  Perhaps it, like all of it, was just another high tech hologram.  Like?  Two hundred and ninety one million crazy baldheads do not think like this and will stamp their feet and screech at you for such wicked speech.  Why, they'll probably have a trial in the main ring complete with the prosecution's selection of experts yukking it up in their fifteen minutes of face time on TV, yeah! TV.  You are no one, you know, in this lonely beleaguered, hardass shell of a civilization unless you are on TV.  It doesn't matter if you are selling insurance or pork rinds, expertly analyzing computer generated news with your computer generated peers squeezed evermore tightly in between the headline banners, any airtime will do.  Of course, they have rules. The most sought after quality in addition to being fully integrated with your representative self so that the representative self is always in complete control, is high ratings appeal.  You'll note that the two most desirable qualities are actually one pure, homogenized quality unadulterated with any experience that cannot be easily explained.  There are no "ifs", no guesswork in questioning the possibility of something larger than can't be covered between trips to the pork rind bag and cerveza cooler.

In the trial, to date, still the question of a father for the toddler remains unasked and unmentioned.  This is a first, and how it is left to the unknown unmentioned is an amazing mystery, although, some dire and distant message comes through regardless and that would be, of course, the possibility in vitro fertilization at some point will be the future's sole legally controlled method for producing new generations of replacement representative selves.  In a throwback to early technology, designer DNA will be the cultural norm, children born never knowing what came before, true products of the moment, pudgy, steamrolled, cookie-cut and pundit-like in discourtesy, quick to condemn, always in control of themselves and their bleak surroundings seen as delightful, amusing, progressive, evidence of perfection everywhere because they can not possibly ever know what they like and don't like, in praise, always kneeling before the altars of quack dogma, the Big Top drawing in whole manufactured families to stare in awe at roadkill in sideshows unburdening them of their doubts.

There is nothing we think or do that someone somewhere can't figure out how to eek out a living off of you and in doing so, laws attempting to refunnel the cash flow are designed, voted and approved.  Legal or illegal.  There is also nothing that anyone anywhere does that cannot be defined by its opposite intention depending on the approval ratings within a culture.

It helps to understand these times in general by thinking about what isn't being presented and less about what is.  What drives the desires of entertainment seekers and what drives you.  While it may seem much like Shirley Jackson's short story, The Lottery, where the villagers drew lots to see who would be the annual stoning victim, it is only slightly more complicated being that approval ratings change as the situation worsens.  Ratings attempt to create a sense of growth and prosperity just around the corner in spite of the hopelessness of their tattered Big Tops and rigged sideshows of the fallen, shredded by the stampeding crowds lusting to be something more than a social networking wall, forever locked into the impression of free will and miraculously, never attending to the slightest concern they are the meal ticket du jour.

Granville Redmond, Malibu Coast Spring, c. 1929

... The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Lighting the Pyre: a portrait in child abuse

A rather perfect metaphor for the state of our new national lifestyle happens to be playing out at this very moment under the noses of one of the largest gatherings of tabloidiers in America's favorite conference city, Orlando.  Yes, its the sad, sorry show trial of "Tot Mom", Casey Anthony.  Since the OJ freeway chase, these trials have become commercially sponsored circuses where every irrelevant detail is allowed a full day, often weeks, in sideshows where everyone who is someone presses or is pressured repeatedly to resolve actually nothing.  It seems in this latest Orlando tent revival encircled with news caravans swaying to the chorus of death penalty, cold blooded monster, spiteful bitch, etc, nowhere is there mention of a father for the dead child.  You'll have to think about that one, and when you do, it will remind you of a swirling Twilight Zone vortex sucking you far, far down the rabbit hole into long and winding secret tunnels, each of them detours and cul de sacs lined with casinos, choir boys, Super 8's and fast food chains.  Mind you, I pay attention to this trial reluctantly.  Our old friend Pirate Rick once said about these things, its like trying not to look at a horrible car accident... as you inch by in first gear under direction from the highway patrol.

Ahem, cough cough, and how is that different from the general state of affairs?

This Tot Mom story is interesting because the seriously damaged defendant on trial for murder simply cannot speak truthfully on any issue at all.  That she cannot tell the truth about ANYthing, many unrelated or very much related witnesses on the stand can lie and walk free since next to Tot Mom, everyone else testifying appears innocent and is excused from guilt.  If you have a chance to see this girl in action what you are seeing is an extraordinarily advanced product of civilization in disaster, a modern day dysfunctional family up to their eyeballs in abuse.  The upbringing of such a defendant becomes obvious as the storyline continues to guarantee further depletion of Floridian taxpayers pockets.  I give this one months in the oven and even then nothing about the story is obvious for the obvious here is what is brazenly ignored in favor of execution.  It is this summer's Coliseum act.  Glancing at the MSM sites tells us it is a ratings smash.  You have to imagine there are more than a few swaps riding on the verdict.

Let's see, if you were beaten to a pulp as a child you would soon learn to lie about whatever it was that caused the beatings.  Let's say the infractions were always minor, like not making your bed or keeping your drawers neat enough, and let's say it made no difference, minor infractions were treated as serious criminal offense each and every time without regard to degree of the offense, eventually a child adapts themselves for survival by distorting any truth in order to escape punishment.  Now, imagine both parents of such a child never spoke truthfully either, that every word was a denial of responsibility through subterfuge and little coalitions agreeing with one another's fabrications on every single issue that came along, even that of being fully unable to cancel an appointment without spinning a web of transparent and complicated whoppers. Remarkably, this upside down and backwards family receives the kiss of lily whiteness while Tot Mom becomes further separated from the world of the living.  And yet, nothing to date has come up that in any way resembles truth.  It is as if the jury is deaf and blind and the prosecution's vampire fangs drip blood on the industrial carpet of modern justice's architectural flooring.  This event is of course only one of many more to come as technology partners with the global economy to stay high on the Forbes list with all the extreme and previously unimaginable  tortures reducing world population to a more manageable size and expense, simultaneously producing glowing quarterly growth reports. 

One item of note in this bloodthirsty carnival that evades discussion concerns the father of the dead toddler.  Um, where is he?  Who is he? Why is he never mentioned?  Its a simple question, isn't it.  Perhaps something was said before I looked behind the pulpit?  Its possible, in fact you may wonder how I could be posting about this trial at all.  No problem, the Fireteacher is the TV guy here, I pass through the room where he watches hundreds of times a day in my position as friend doing my chores of support, and whatever is blaring on the box meets my ears, like it or not, if anything it stimulates the aura of ambient anguish.  One could fall into compete spiritual fulfillment without the grinding vocals of analysts analyzing computer generated news because the Internet killed the physical papers and they had to make up the loss keyboarding in ones and zeros like everybody else if they were going to keep up appearances as vitally important to global economic growth in transition.  (Cough, cough, must be getting a cold ...)  The longer the Apocalypse stretches out, the more variations of dysfunction come into the spotlight.  The more absurd the circus acts, drunken, oxycodoned, opiated and chloroformed to both seller and buyer, the more fantastic these distortions of reality become and there my friends, lies our true growth as a species, giving willing and gutturally brazen acceptance to Orwellian mass hatred by the numbers and again, it appears a smash.

Yesterday morning as I was leashing little Bernie for his stroll, the squawk box attached to a satellite network was trembling with cartoon lightening zig zags concerning a controversy between political analysts having to do with a few states' new plan to drug test food stamp recipients.  Maybe they should take a poll among the African Americans in Oakland to see how well that might work out as a clever cost cutting measure to trim the deficit?  And, btw, can anyone tell me what we are doing in Afghanistan?

There was a time not too long ago, black gold was all the talk, but no more.  Its got lots of company as the land melts away under mining wastewater and radiation encircles the globe, this must be what it is like to smother slowly inside a bank vault.

Back to the trial, children are sponges, they take on their parents patterns helped along with more advanced patterns of the same behaviors as they mature and observe.  Try to keep that in mind when you run into denial.  Denial is not a genetic trait, it is a learned self-preservation strategy.  Ideally, humans should not be forced to deny anything, but as technology advances, lies become ubiquitous because every aspect of the greater denial is charted for approval and receiving high marks for complete, multi-tiered, tinseled fabrications such as the recent resurrection of Osama.  High approval ratings equate to big investments which benefits ... oh, guess who.

Tot Mom's entire family is hiding a horrible secret.  So noxious is the truth behind this story, they are willing to crucify each other on the stand before revealing anything even hinting at this secret which of course, they are sworn to do under oath.  Since 2008, they've continued the charade of forthright honesty all the while building walls of deceit to protect that which they are loathe to utter and yet, having lost a granddaughter, the life of their only daughter/sister is thrown under the bus to protect their magazine image, their collective representative-selves, rather than see the remainder of their days on Earth tarnished with the ugly stain of perversion and abuse.  No doubt the truth will come out one day, but possibly not in time to save Casey from execution.  It is a shame to watch these characters portray the drama mirrored daily in political life, the corporatocracy and its filthy policies, foreign and otherwise, which regularly throw entire populations under the bus as well.  Post traumatic shock, dysfunctional leadership and the abuses they perpetrate always make a delicate situation worse with after-effects trickling down wherever exists the path of least resistance - among the innocent, the unaware, the suffering, denied the God-given right to flower into maturity, instead forced to shrivel under the boot.   What we find ultimately repulsive are the crowds pointing and shouting blame while possessing no insight into how these situations come to pass or what they portend for our shared futures.

Update: As I ready this post for publication, the trial pundits seem to have taken a new twist, CNN is actually arguing over Tot Mom as traumatized victim of sexual abuse by her solid citizen father, former police officer, but will it stick or be shouted down by the hungry crowds thrilling to the circus?  We might know by the time the next "giving" season rolls around - or not.  A this point, it would not be out of the ballpark to say this particular circus has real potential for indefinite repeats as the subjects under examination take the broken middle class off the pages of human history forever.