From: revjim@strangegames.com (Reverend Jim)
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Tue, Feb 19, 2002
Brothers and Sisters, Dear Friends, Seekers, etc.,
In the weeks following the tragedy of September 11, we had many
reasons to worry and many reasons to hope. We worried about the loss
of civil liberties, a plunge into a state of permanent war, and the
general reversal of whatever progress we've made since the Vietnam
era. Our hopes came from strange directions: hope that Americans
would finally wake up a bit and take a good look at the rest of the
world, that disgust for the world's bin Ladens and Fallwells would end
religious extremism, that a combination of coalition partners and
Colin Powell would force a bit of humanity on US foreign policy.
Since that time, our worries have been more than confirmed, and nearly
all of our hopes have evaporated. The tragedy has brought out the
best in the American spirit, if one uses the same meaning of 'the
best' that John Aschcroft does.
A few highlights:
- "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists"
- Office of Homeland Security
- The Patriot Act
- "Evildoers"
- Bill Maher and Sami Al-Arian
- Selling Chechnya
- Goddamn Fucking CNN
- Benefit concerts
- Anthrax isn't terrorism if it's made in the USA
- Racial profiling's okay if it's Ay-rabs
- Dragnets
- Missile defence
- Indefinite detainment
- "Crusade"
- 86% approval rating
- Cluster bombing
- Robert Mugabe saves the world from terrorism
- Didn't there use to be a Democratic Party?
- Even-handedness in Palestine for about 3 weeks
- $379 billion
- Missile reduction = missiles in storage
- "Unconventional war" refers to the Geneva Convention
- Vajpayee saves the world from terrorism
- National outrage against John Walker Lindh
- Carpet bombing
- Military tribunals
- Jiang Zemin saves the world from terrorism
- Arial Sharon saves the world from terrorism
- "Axis of Evil"
- Drugs = terrorism
- $8000 drapes
- Slobodan Milosovic saves the world from terrorism
- "Iraq is next"
- Office of Strategic Influence
- Futurama cancelled
Don't know what to do about this. Well I know what I WILL do... I'm
going home and eating dinner. And doing more thinking.
Your Reverend Jim
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: alecto
Well sure if you THINK about things it's bound to look awful. I bet
there was some old sourball in Catal Huyuk with an equally depressing
list of things about the Assyrians burning cities and goat cheese getting
so expensive and his favorite bowl got broken and the priests at the
temple of the storm god charge more and more and seem to be delivering
less and less. Turn off your god damn TV and go take a walk in the
country, look at some birds and stuff. There are only two things in the
world: experience and imagination. Experience is instantaneous, what's
happening to you right now. Everything else, your memories of the past,
you hopes and fears about the future, things you heard about on TV,
what's happening or not happening a block or a thousand miles away, is
ONLY imagination. You can only think of one thing at a time, and you can
choose what that thing is. You can choose to feel any way you want to
about anything you can think of. Me, I am hurt and outraged about the
Spanish occupation of the Netherlands in the seventeenth century.
It's just a picture in your head. Make it a funny picture.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang"
In article <3C72B030.3C3ECF60@eumenides.org>, alecto
>
> It's just a picture in your head. Make it a funny picture.
This high faluting works until you stub your toe -- then you're
literally hoppin' mad and return to a lower falution level. Or until
some goofy germ that Anthrax Guy was trying to warn us about gets out
and it's THE STAND crossed with THE TWELVE MONKEYS crossed with ROAD
WARRIOR.
NOT THAT YOU CAN DO A GOD DAMN THING ABOUT ANY OF THAT IN ADVANCE, so,
yes, it doesn't do any good to fret and worry.
It does however help some folks to let off steam when they RANT about
it. Hell, sometimes it saves ME the trouble of ranting about it and yet
I get a fair dose of the same satisfaction just from reading some other
bastard ranting about it.
I totally cut myself off from the news in any form, from April 1999 to
Sept. 11 2002. And it was GREAT!! I would highly recommend it to
everybody. It's like being a blissful idiot. You're as happy as a
retarded person, because you don't know something everybody else knows.
I am trying to stop looking at Yahoo News every 2 hours now. It's kinda
starting to get to me again. Not the big war stuff, it's the small time
local stuff about babies getting their toes cut off and dogs getting
shot -- just reminders that I can't do a damn thing about any of it,
unless I happen to be there when somebody's fixing to do it, besides
not shoot dogs or cut off baby toes.
But, some people get a perverse form a Slack from fiendishly devouring
news, gossip rumors of war, and wars, and crime, and then bitching
about how awful it all is.
Also, if you're around human beings all day long, you can HARDLY just
IGNORE the things which concern them.
Not everybody can just turn off the TV and go for a walk in the
country. Some have to listen to what the other guys on the crew are
listening to.
And William of Orange? That TRAITOR TO SPAIN! And what a WUSS.
Threatening to flood the entire Netherlands rather than let the Spanish
(OF WHICH HE WAS ONE!!!) take over... if he'd of had ANY GUMPTION he'd
have gone ahead and pulled the kid's finger out of the dyke ANYWAY,
destroying the country even after the Spanish had turned around and
headed back home rather than deal with such a bunch of fanatics.
I smells me a Dutchman 'round here.
--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected
P.O. Box 181417, Cleveland, OH 44118 (fax 216-320-9528)
A subsidiary of:
The SubGenius Foundation, Inc. / P.O. Box 140306, Dallas, TX 75214
SubSITE: http://www.subgenius.com
PRABOB
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: alecto
"Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
>
> This high faluting works until you stub your toe -- then you're
> literally hoppin' mad and return to a lower falution level.
That's where constant practice in self-discipline comes in handy. With
sufficient practice one time in a hundred you can stub your toe, cuss briefly
and then recognize that you almost lost your equilibrium for a moment there.
And then you have something all your own that you can feel pretty good about.
>
>
> NOT THAT YOU CAN DO A GOD DAMN THING ABOUT ANY OF THAT IN ADVANCE, so,
> yes, it doesn't do any good to fret and worry.
>
> It does however help some folks to let off steam when they RANT about
> it. Hell, sometimes it saves ME the trouble of ranting about it and yet
> I get a fair dose of the same satisfaction just from reading some other
> bastard ranting about it.
>
>
> I smells me a Dutchman 'round here.
A Frisian at the very least.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: revjim@strangegames.com (Reverend Jim)
Quoth alecto:
>
> Well sure if you THINK about things it's bound to look awful. I bet
> there was some old sourball in Catal Huyuk with an equally depressing
> list of things about the Assyrians burning cities and goat cheese getting
> so expensive and his favorite bowl got broken and the priests at the
> temple of the storm god charge more and more and seem to be delivering
> less and less.
Man oh man... the Assyrians never got anywhere NEAR Catal Huyuk.
That's like the episode of Xena when she meets Moses.
> Turn off your god damn TV and go take a walk in the
> country, look at some birds and stuff. There are only two things in
the
> world: experience and imagination. [etc. etc. etc.] You can only
think
> of one thing at a time, and you can choose what that thing is. You can
> choose to feel any way you want to about anything you can think of.
Oy! My life is more than pleasant at the moment, thank you very much.
That doesn't stop me from taking a look around me, nor do I think it
should be so damn UNFASHIONABLE for a SubGenius to concern itself with
politics. I may not be doing anything about it but designing ever
more complex orgasm-driven escape vessels, but that's not the point.
It still never hurts to look at the world, or to blow off steam while
doing so.
> Me, I am hurt and outraged about the Spanish occupation of
> the Netherlands in the seventeenth century.
It's Caesar Augustus that pisses me off. Majorly. I'm quite serious
here: many is the day when I'll be walking down a street or sitting in
a tram, and suddenly think, GODDAMN, if only Antonius had won the
Battle of Actium. Seriously.
> It's just a picture in your head. Make it a funny picture.
Okay, I'm visualising that I no longer need a job to pay my rent.
We'll see what happens.
Smiles,
Your Reverend Jim