tvashtarkatena

Look up Lanchaster's Square Law (warfare) between litres of cheap red. It applies to ants, too, apparently. Ant warfare is arelly interesting...and really, really brutal.

LOL! Best I could do off the cuff and with only one cuppa under me belt.

who needs a safety net when ya gotta whole wild continent of crocs, bunnies n' kangroos to consume? And chicken-sized lizards that conveniently stand up to bumper height. And a quarter million feral camels that are actually quite delicious.

BTW, NPR is expanding its reach and audience massively these days, particularly into rural areas. Never underestimated country folks' thirst for new entertainment. Even Reverend Armageddon and FOX get old after a while. I mean, how many topics do they ever cover...3, maybe?

How is my 'version' of the media any different than yours? My reaction, and action, re: the media is different, fo shiz.

nobody is putting anybody up front at all b/c there is no leadership and no front - in the absence of either it's pretty easy for anyone, corporate or otherwise, to characterize you as they want. The corporate media will always try to disparage protesters except when it's the tea party. The homeless might as well show what their living conditions are every day for once they can't easily be beaten out of sight. We have the media we have. Complaining about it does fuck all. Successful, progressive advocacy organizations use our EXISTING media, not the one that floats far above us way up the perfect blue sky, effectively. It's not that hard to do, but it does take disciplined messaging, training, coordination, maturity, and the ability to STOP WHINING ABOUT HOW UNFAIR OUR CORPORATE MEDIA IS.

Now for a more editorial viewpoint. All protest is street theatre. The idea is to sway public opinion enough to generate public action: purchasing/investment decisions, voting, activism, etc, and, as a result, government and corporate action. Historically, the more coordinated and targeted the protest, the greater the chance of success. The Civil Rights protests are a classic example. It's helpful to remember that, despite their eventual success, leaders of the movement were close to abandoning it...ie, they determined that it was at the brink of failure. Such protests were highly organized, had many powerful advocacy groups and partners, and were coordinated with a very strong, long term lobbying and public information campaign effort. They're demands were simple, straightforward, and clear: equal rights regardless of race. Technology has changed the nature of protest recently (and human activity in general). Now, as with the OWS and Arab Spring protests, very large groups of people can be mobilized in a very short period of time without much central leadership or planning beforehand. In this way, humans exhibit 'swarm intelligence', much like ants: the ability to act in a sophisticated fashion at very large scales while being essentially leaderless. The early Arab Spring protests were fundamentally different from OWS in a few important ways. In Tunisia and Egypt were the result of years of planning, coordination, and activism. The main demands were simple and clear: Out with the dictator, in with a Constitution. Still, like OWS, they were essentially 'leaderless'. Syria looks more like OWS in that it seems to have had quite a bit less prior planning. OWS lacks a strong, centralized, well monied lobbying effort and coordination with pre-existing, powerful advocacy organizations. It also lacks a clear list of tangible demands (like...out with the dictator, for example). That doesn't mean its doomed to failure, however. The income disparity in the US is out of control, getting worse fast, and is at the point where it clearly threatens the well being and stability of our society. Unfortunately, its very, very difficult to come up with a 'simple' list of reforms to turn that around. And even more unfortunately, our society has changed...for the worse. We now have a significant segment of the society that has openly replaced compassion with contempt for those less fortunate. An afterthought educational system, lax parenting, and increases sense of entitlement from having it easy for more than a generation have severely eroded the average citizen's, and particularly younger citizens, motivation and analytical abilities. A consolidated media, much of which is shuttles between propaganda and entertainment now, hasn't helped. An aging population, huge national failures (wars, housing bubble, the debt), the rise of other global powers, and the spectre of seemingly irreversible ecological collapse has made us a very angry, very worried, very stressed out society - when the cage gets this electrified, the rats start biting each other. Personally, I think OWS has already proven to be a quiet success: people are quietly moving their money away from the large wall street banks into more local institutions. Awareness of our income disparity has grown tremendously. The spotlight is shining brightly on that parasitic cockroach of a party, the GOP, whose anti human rights, asset stripping, racist, wealth concentration agenda is now out in the open for all to see. The failure of the so called Democrats to quash this parasitism and open, widespread use of our public institutions for personal gain is also readily apparent. OWS needs roll with the times and changes, as we all must. It should recognize that it's 'right to camp' campaign is probably a loser, and fighting to the bitter end will not win public support. The public doesn't want to see the parks it paid for so dearly and can no longer enjoy destroyed by what looks to them like the Rainbow Family. I don't, and I'm practically an anarchist. It should partner with established, powerful groups with a strong lobbying presence. And it should provide a menu of what regular folks can do, like moving their money out of Wall Street, to turn things around. That's my thousand cents, anyway.

There have been no recent, and few past supreme court cases involving the 1st amendment right to assemble, and none directly related to the current OWS 'to camp or not to camp' question. The constitutionality of time, place, and manner restrictions on speech, and, presumably, assembly, has been determined in the past by the following 4 part test: 1. Does the regulation serve an important governmental interest? 2. Is the government interest served by the regulation unrelated to the suppression of a particular message? 3. Is the regulation narrowly tailored to serve the government's interest? 4. Does the regulation leave open ample alternative means for communicating messages? In addition, a) public safety and b) national security have both served as legitimate government interests for such time, place, and manner restrictions on speech. My guess is that the 'no camping' restriction will pass this 4 part test, the government interest being public safety, and will therefore be ruled to be constitutional by the courts. Of course, I'm not a constitutional or any other brand of lawyer, but I do play one on CC. Carry on.

Thank god there weren't cell phones back then.

I don't think people appreciate nowadays how hard it was to pilot a Ford Galaxy 500 Country Squire Wagon that really needed a conning tower the fucking steering was so loose at slightly sub-sonic speeds, light a Camel, backhand multiple brats, keep the battered radio tuned to CBS News, hoove a bag of Red Vines, and yell at the dog all at the same time.

Sheeit, Mr. Gallagher use to hit us (in the back seat) while driving AND smoking... People just can't multi-task these days.

Keee-rist, the one I got yesterday already weighed a couple of pounds. I damn near saved him for Thanksgiving.

Hey, why not a hot meal before they go to that Great Big Cheese Factory in the Sky?

As long as they don't get to fuck up another one.

I don't know, my rats could be picky. After all, they've been getting a last meal of Trader Joe's Organic Almond Butter....

Congressional Survivor. I like it.

You know, the whole cat thing gave me a great idea for getting rid of half the neighborhood's rat population. Sobo, you can get me some plutonium out your way, no?

It's not certain that the man in the photo ever had a cat. You'd have had to open the door of his house to find out.

His identity remains uncertain...

Then again, there's always virtual composting....

I believe biting is already illegal. Don't think the 'endangerment' part was considered illegal. Prohibition not required. Next time you get drunk in your own dining room, I'd be in favor of having your ass hauled off by the authorities.

Then pen is mightier than the pitchfork... ...unless you're composting.

Votes count, but activism and money, applied effectively, count more.

Dude, do you even own a pitchfork? Got one of those and two torches, myself... ...and no one's EVER gonna take em from me.

Who doesn't love the DEA at this point? 40 fighting a trillion dollar War on Drugs - and illegal drugs are cheaper, stronger, used more often by more people than ever. Thanks, guys! Keep up the good work! I know, I know...blame the politicians, right?