KULTUREAMERIKA

Charla Nash

Charla Nash lost eyes, nose and jaw in chimpanzee attack

NY Daily News


The shocked family of the chimp attack victim said Wednesday a team of doctors is working feverishly to save her life as the extent of her horrific injuries was revealed.

Paramedics say Charla Nash, 55, lost her nose, eyes and jaw as the crazed simian ate her alive in the driveway of her friend's Stamford, Conn., home Monday.

His voice shaky, her twin brother, Mike Nash, thanked the four teams of specialists who performed more than seven hours of surgery.

"The team of doctors and staff battled around the clock to stabilize Charla," he said inside Stamford Hospital.

Charla Nash was listed in critical but stable condition yesterday, and her vital signs were improving, doctors said.

She was left near dead when her close friend's 200-pound ape, Travis, brutally mauled her after escaping the home he was raised in from infancy.

Travis' owner, Sandy Herold, used a butcher knife to stab the 14-year-old chimp, who was suffering from Lyme disease and had consumed Xanax - but the rampage only ended when cops shot the animal dead.

Questions emerged yesterday as to whether Travis should have been removed from Herold's home years ago.

A former Stamford resident, Leslie Mostel-Paul, 52, told the Daily News that Travis bit her hand in November 1996 when she tried to pet him in the parking lot of a local doctor's office.

Mostel-Paul says she contacted police, but her complaint was brushed aside.

"If the police had taken care of what they needed to, this woman wouldn't be lying in intensive care right now," Mostel-Paul said. "He shouldn't have been in the house."

Stamford Police Capt. Richard Conklin said he had no record of the incident and could not confirm or deny its validity.

esandoval@nydailynews.com


Miss Nash is in our prayer and thoughts...........Frank Dialogue

Chimpanzee Owner

200 Pound Chimp in Cage

I first thought this story was some kind of joke...But it was not...What horrifies me is the insanity of the owner, one Sandra Herold, a seriously mentally imbalanced woman...She claims that 'the chimp was my life: I ate with him, cooked for him, slept with him...'...You can read the story for yourself...What bothered me about news stories I saw was the attempt to make the chimp a 'victim'...Now, I feel for the ape, since he spent much of his time locked in a cage, with only this neurotic human for company, but...Police officers had to shoot the marauding ape to stop the attack...An interesting sidelight to this story is a cartoon that appeared in the NY Post, showing two police officers shooting a chimp, and making comments about 'a monkey and the 'stimulus package'...The cartoon has stirred some outrage, and I post the cartoon and the Reverend Al Sharpton's reaction to it at the bottom of the post...

Owner now says she never gave slain chimp Xanax

By JOHN CHRISTOFFEREN, Associated Press Writer John Christofferen, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 18, 6:20 pm ET STAMFORD, Conn. –

 As authorities considered criminal charges, the woman whose 200-pound domesticated chimpanzee went berserk and mauled a friend backtracked Wednesday on whether she gave the animal the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. Sandra Herold told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she never gave the drug to her 14-year-old chimp, Travis, who was shot dead by Stamford police Monday after he grievously wounded Herold's friend Charla Nash.

However, Herold said in an interview aired Wednesday morning on NBC's "Today" show that she gave Travis the drug in some tea less than five minutes before he attacked Nash — she even showed a reporter the mug. Police have said Herold told them that she gave Travis Xanax that had not been prescribed for him earlier on Monday to calm him because he was agitated.

In humans, Xanax can lead to aggression in people who are unstable to begin with, said Dr. Emil Coccaro, chief of psychiatry at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

"Xanax could have made him worse," if human studies are any indication, Coccaro said.

The chimpanzee's rampage forced Herold to stab her beloved pet with a butcher knife and pound him with a shovel.

"For me to do something like that — put a knife in him — was like putting one in myself." she said Wednesday. "Then he turned around and like, 'Mom, what did you do?'"

Herold's voice was filled with fear and horror in 911 tapes released by police Tuesday night.

Travis can be heard grunting as she cries for help: "He's killing my friend!"

The dispatcher says, "Who's killing your friend?"

Herold replies, "My chimpanzee! He ripped her apart! Shoot him, shoot him!"

After police arrived, one officer radioed back: "There's a man down. He doesn't look good," he says, referring to the disfigured Nash. "We've got to get this guy out of here. He's got no face."

Doctors at Stamford Hospital said Wednesday that it took four teams of surgeons more than seven hours to stabilize Nash, 55. Hand specialists, plastic surgeons and specialists in orthopedics, ophthalmology and trauma have treated Nash, who has made slight progress but remained in critical condition, Dr. Kevin Miller said at a news conference with the victim's family.

Nash's brother, Mike Nash, did not take questions from reporters but said the family is grateful for community support it has received.

"It should be known that people who were complete strangers to us prior to this have selflessly offered their assistance to our family," he said. "We are eternally grateful to them and to all of you who are keeping Charla in your thoughts and wishing her well."

Police have said they are looking into the possibility of criminal charges. A pet owner who knew or should have known that an animal was a danger to others can be held criminally responsible.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Wednesday that a defect in Connecticut's laws allowed Herold to keep the chimp in her home, probably illegally. There are rules requiring large primates to be registered by the state, but officials have some discretion in enforcing them and violations carry only minor penalties, he said.

"This animal probably was illegally kept, so far as that statute is concerned," Blumenthal said. "Clearly, some kind of permission was necessary for this animal to be at that residence."

Herold, a 70-year-old widow whose daughter was killed in a car accident several years ago, told the AP the chimp "was my life" and that she "never, never, never" gave it Xanax. "He never had anything but love."

Herold speculated that Travis was being protective of her when he attacked Nash, who she said was driving a different car, wearing a new hairstyle and holding an Elmo stuffed toy in front of her face as a present to the chimp.

"She had the toy in front of her. This was just a freak thing," Herold said.

Herrold said Nash is a close friend who traveled with her to a Connecticut casino on Valentine's Day.

"It was the most horrible thing that could ever happen," she said.

Authorities are trying to determine why the chimp, a veteran of TV commercials who could dress himself, drink wine from a glass and use the toilet, suddenly attacked. A test for rabies was negative, Stamford police Capt. Richard Conklin said Wednesday.

Nash had gone to Herold's home in Stamford on Monday to help her coax the chimp back into the house after he got out, police said. After the animal lunged at Nash when she got out of her car, Herold ran inside to call 911 and returned with a knife.

After the initial attack, Travis ran away and started roaming Herold's property. An officer shot the chimp several times after it opened the door to his cruiser and started to get in.

Travis appeared in TV commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola when he was younger, and at home he was treated like a member of the family. Don Mecca, a family friend from Colchester, N.Y., said Herold fed the chimp steak, lobster, ice cream and Italian food.

Primate experts say chimpanzees are unpredictable and dangerous even after living among humans for years, but in her "Today" interview, Herold rejected criticism that they are inappropriate pets.

"It's a horrible thing, but I'm not a horrible person and he's not a horrible chimp." she said.

Connecticut law requires primates weighing more than 50 pounds to be registered with the state. But state Department of Environmental Protectionpublic health risk and was owned before the registration requirement began.

Blumenthal, the attorney general, sent letters to legislative leaders and DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy, asking them to support a proposed law that would ban all potentially dangerous exotic animals, such as chimpanzees, crocodiles and poisonous snakes, from being kept in a residential setting in Connecticut.

McCarthy is seeking a similar law banning large primates. Her agency is also asking the public, police officers and animal control officers who are aware of large primates being kept as pets to report the animals to the agency.

Sourced from Yahoo News


Now, to the cartoon and the reaction of the Rev. Al Sharpton...

The Offending Cartoon

Quote from Al Sharpton:

"The cartoon in today's New York Post is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee that "Now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill.""Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?"

Oh yes. Words of wisdom from one one the biggest political and media whores ever to blemish the American landscape. As always, consider the source. And consider whether the 'stimulus package' is a victory. A victory for who and for what?

But, I must say that this whole story and the cartoon spinoff do Korrectly give a representation of the current AmeriKan Kultural and PolitiKal landsKape. We are most definitely at the end of something. I am afraid that America has become a nation of clowns, both in it's leadership and in the lifestyle and mentality of it's citizens. Definitely the end of something, reflective of a civilization that has lost it's bearings and is in a seriously downward spiral. But perhaps all is not lost. We have become a Kartoon Kulture, and, possibly, the cartoonist and the humourist are really voices of reason. Life would be unbearable if we lost the ability to see the ironic, and this irony often contains truth, be it painful or not. But what have we become when our women substitute a relationship with a monkey for a relationship with a man? Is this the logical result of sexual liberation? Or does it denote a devolution to a sub-human state? As the song says 'I guess I just don't know...'

What's Up, Doc?

Boris, Natasha & 'Fearless Leader' : 'Ver Is Squirell?'

Here is Squirrel with Moose

Here is 'new Squirrel'...

...and his 'Half-Brother'

'IraqoToons': USA Gains the Respect of the World/The 'Ace of Spades'

'ZioToons' : Flag of Ashkenazistan

Talmudic Jurisprudence at Work

EduKation Today

More EduKation: Children's Book Author now PolitiKally KorreKt

AfroToons : HomesKooling

NetToons: 'Virtual Love'

EuroToons : Spain's Prince Filipe & Wife Letizia Having Sex: Prince Felipe says: 'Do you realize if I get you pregnant, it will be the closest thing to work that I have ever done in my life?'

Serb EuroToon: 'Welcome to the EU...Wipe Your Feet on the Doormat!'

ZioTunes: Esther Teaches Judith to make matzo!

'Enough of These Goyim!' : The Jew Fights Back,,,

IslamoToons

MexiToons

One must have a sense of humour...Let's bring it out into the open!

 SKizophrenia

I am in the mood for a short story...I have spent years working with the menatally ill.This is the truth.I worked in various 'residential facilities', day programs and also the psychiatric ward in the hospital.I worked with many hard-core schizophrenics, people who hear voices, have hallucinations, and are basically existing in a different reality.Now, in all my time working with these people, some who had killed people and were declared criminally insane, I never had any real problems, and in fact, was able to communicate quite well with them (at least for the most part). My worst problems were with the staff at these facilities, who tended to treat these people like animals or alien beings. Anyway, let me recount one particular humorous tale. I worked with a guy we called 'Cowboy John'. Now John would get up every day and wear nice Levi type black jeans, fine leather cowboy boots, and sometimes a cowboy hat.John was extremely neat and fastidious, which was ironic, because his roomate in this particular residence was a pig, who ate canned Spam cold, right out of the can, in chunks, sometimes urinated in the trashcan in his bedroom, and once,escaped the facility, ran home to his wife, and promptly got down on the floor and started eating from the dog's bowl..But back to John: He would dress up in cowboy garb, and spend all day smoking cigarettes and drinking hot tea in the kitchen. AND, constantly talked to himself or should I say, had a continous discussion with someone who wasn't there. Cowboy John claimed to be a Korean War veteran, and many of the conversations went something like this: 'Captain, you're making a mistake...We should deploy to the south, the Koreans are there...No, Captain, I said to the south, get out your map...No, I said the squad is gonna take fire this way, Captain...I'M the radio man here and I'm telling  you...'.Crazy. Anyway, one day Cowboy John was sitting in the kitchen for a number of hours, drinking tea and smoking, but being very quiet. After a few hours, I became curious. I say 'John, you are very quiet today...Is everything all right?'. John pointed up to the air conditioning duct on the wall in the kitchen...'John, what are you pointing at?'. He pointed to the duct again, and said 'Can you turn it off?'. 'You mean the air conditioner John?'. 'No' he said 'I mean the intercom up there!..That voice that's coming through it has been blasting away all day and I'm starting to get a headache from listening to that son of a bitch.'

John's roomate, George was also quite a character, as I mentioned. The staff at our facility was primarily Black, and George 'didn't like niggers'. So when George has a Black staff member on duty, especially on the overnight shift, he would make it a point to get mischievious. Many of the black staff tried to be 'over-controlling' so this was a recipe for trouble. Sometimes the staff would come in to empty the trash at the end of the shift, only to find that George had filled the platic trach can with urine, or, if he was really in a mood, he would have a bowel movement in the trash receptacle, or on the floor beside it. The facility involved was actually a very nice set of apartments, so this kind of 'unhygienic behavior' would upset the staff terribly. George also had a tendency to 'wander'. Since this was not a 'locked' facility, and was actually a 'community residential' type set up, all the clients, or patients had the liberty to go out for walks or to the store or whatever. Usually, a staff member or 'counselor' would accompany them, but not always. George was very independent because, although he had been locked in a State hospital for many years, he had previously been married with a family. And his wife still lived nearby our residential facility. One night George took off, and went back to his old home, breaking in through the patio door. Apparently his wife, who was upstairs sleeping, didn't hear him come in. When she came down to the kitchen the next morning, she found her husband George down on the kitchen floor, eating out of the dog's bowl. George was having an early breakfast. She called us, and we went and picked George up.

The real problem at these mental health residences was the staff. These residential facilities came into being when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania started closing down the large state mental hospitals, due to numerous lawsuits over cruelty and mistreatment of patients. Some 'avocasy groups' filed a class action lawsuit, and an award up upwards of $100,000,000 was granted to establish half-way houses or community residences for former hospital patients. These residences were then run by 'non-profits'. Under Pennsylvania laws, these MH non-profits had to adhere to 'affirmative action' hiring practices, meaning that 75% of the staff hired was black. Many of the staffers were not well-suited in terms of dealing with 'difficult' personalities. Their solution to conflict was the exertion of 'control'. I got my job in this particular facility through a 'heads up' from a friend of mine who already worked there. I needed a job, and since he knew I could communicate with 'out of the ordinary' individuals, I was able to get my position.

The supervisor for this program was a Liberian immigrant who, from what I could see, had no particular qualifications for a supervisory role. In fact, he was having a surreptuous affair with a female staffer, using one of the clients apartments to consummate it. Many of the black staff disliked whites, and after about a yer or so of employment, I was framed up for a 'bogus' violation of staff rules. The supervisor wemt along with these allegations, and I lost my job. However, there was a measure of vindication for me. The MH facility tried to deny me my unemployment benefits on the basis of 'willful violation' of policies of conduct. I had violated no policies. When I went before the unemployment arbitrator or judge, I was confronted by administrators from the facility, the staff members who had lied about me and two lawyers for the 'non profit'. I managed to keep my cool through a one hour hearing, told my side of the story, and the judge believed me, as I was granted my unemployment benefits. About 1 1/2 years later, as I was watching the 11PM news on a local channel, I was greeted with the 'Action News' story of the night: A night supervisor at another Philadelphia MH facility had just been arrested for raping female patients on the midnight shift. I watched the video, and lo and behold, who was being led out of the facility in hand cuffs but my old Liberian supervisor, who had apparently left our old stomping grounds and moved on to 'greener pastures'!

As for 'Cowboy John', George and the rest of my old clients, I don't lnow where they are now, but I wish them God speed. Funny thing, the diagnosis for all of them was almost always: 'Schizophrenia: Undifferentiated' which just means that they acted crazy as loons, but the shrinks could never really put their finger on the real problem,

 'Bullshit Artist' Alex Jones At It Again

   I was flipping through the short-wave band last night, and the reception wasn't very good...I usually like to listen to 'Voice of Russia', 'Radio Ukraine', 'China Radio International' and even, to get a sense of how far the Netherlands has fallen, 'Radio Netherlands'. But since the reception was bad, only one station really came through with a strong signal: WWCR, 'World Wide Christian Radio' out of Nashville TN...And, of course, the biggest mouth on WWCR is Alex Jones, the self-appointed 'Godfather of the 9-11 Truth Movement'.
   Jones was interviewing 'occult researcher' Jordan Maxwell...Now, Maxwell has done some significant research into the occult; in fact, IMHO, he is an 'occultist' himself, with much of his world view deriving straight from the 'Masonic Bible'...The trouble with these researchers who delve into the occult is that it is difficult to tell whether they are 'exposing' something, or whether they are just propagating the occult under the disguise of 'investigation'.
Maxwell mentions his 'compatriots' such as Zachariah Sichin, David Icke, and Baigent, Lee & Lincoln, the authors of 'Holy Grail, Holy Blood'. All of these people are either Freemasons or Kabbalists, whatever 'new disguise' they use to conceal their real views...And, of course, both the Kaballah and, particullarly, Scottish Rite Freemasonry are 'Jewish', or rather 'Mysical Judaism': the Kaballah being the guide for Jewish 'spiritual matters' (the Talmud for 'material or practical' isuues) and Freemasonry an adaption of the kaballah for the 'goyim'.
   Which brings me to my main point...Jones questioned Maxwell on 'who is behind' the conspiracy, who is at the 'top of the pyramid'...and, as one would expect from Alex and many of his guests who delve into such 'primary and esoteric questions' the answer given was another line of bullshit.
   Maxwell named the 'Hanseatic League' and 'Teutonic Zionism' as the key to the 'shadow government' that has been ruling us for the past 7-800 years or so...Now, there is some truth in this, as the world-vies of Aryanism and Zionism are similar in many respects...But, when the mention was made of Jews or 'Jewish Zionism', very briefly, both Jones and Maxwell dismissed any notion of Jewish aspirations to power as irrelevant, Jones stating that Jews were merely playthings in the hands of these 'Teutonic Zionists' or Nazis...Jones also stated that when one 'kicks in the last door of the power matrix', one will find a room full of Nazis.
   I have no particular sympathy for Nazis, and here I specifically mean the most extreme power wielders among them...I don't subscribe to racialism...Some of the economic policies of the National Socialists did indeed make sense...But many, including Hitler were, indeed into the occult, subscribing to such philosophies as practiced by the Theosophy movement and the Thule Society...Hitler himself was a drug addict, under the influence of a cocktail of chemicals including methedrine, synthetic morphines and other substances that were administerd to him by his Jewish doctor Simon Morel...but back to Jones: He NEVER, I repeat NEVER, holds Judaics responsible for their crimes and influence, for instance, the barbaric 'Talmudic revenge movement' known as Communism/Bolshevism, nor dies he mention that the heart of the 'international banking establishment' is Jewish (by 'international' I refer to the European bankers, the most powerful for the past 200 years)...In fact, according to Jones, Jews are merely 'Hof Juden' or 'house Jews', whose primary function is to serve their 'royal' masters in Europe, ot the 'military/industrial/banking' complex in the US...according to shills like Jones, Jews are just pawns, sacrificial lambs or as described by the Jewish cartoonist Art Spiegelman. 'Maus'.
This is not to say that 'Jews rule the World'...but, if one tries to view history realistically, one must note that an ethnic group that makes about .035% of the world's population wields enormous power in proportion to it's actual numbers...and this ethnic group's role in history must be noted.
 Jones derived much of his inspiration and 'schtick' from the late William Cooper, who hosted the radio show 'Hour of the Time' for many years...Jones even got the inspiration for his theme music from the audio clips that used to open Cooper's show...Now, this is no crime, because Jones is a type of artist, and all artists borrow or 'steal' ideas from their predecessors...But, the big-mouth Jones must come under another 'artist' label, and I'm sorry to say this because I have found both him and his guest informative, and, yes, entertaining...Alex Jones, for me, has become a 'bullshit artist'...the bullshit accumulates when a person becomes too 'full of themselves'...The late William Cooper liked to use this term too, to describe certain 'personalities'...Bullshit artist.

Alex Jones Interviews Jordan Maxwell:

http://whitewraithe.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/alex-jones-interviews-jordan-maxwell/

'The Hour of the Time' website: http://www.hourofthetime.com/Hour_of_the_Time/HOTT_HOME.html..............William Cooper, now deceased, broadcast strictly on short-wave...the 'Age of the Internet' was only dawning...now, his followers have archived some of his work, and have kept the program name for the website...I haven't listened to it lately, si I can't recomment one way or the other...the HOTT program is broadcast on short-wave on WBCQ ('The Planet') out of Monticello ME, Mon-Fri @ 7.415 on your short-wave band.

Tatoo You

   I'm going to talk about tatoos.
   My uncles had tatoos when they came back from the service after WWII. My Uncle Matt, who owned a bar, had a couple of good ones. One was a big old American Eagle, wrapped in a flag. Another was some kind of gun. Nothing special, I guess, but they were well done. A lot of ex-servicemen had tatoos. It seemed kind of natural. You fight in a war, you get a tatoo.

   Nowadays, I see a lot of tatoos, but they don't seem as natural to me. Mostly when I see them on women. A tatoo is a kind of 'branding' or 'marking'. Why would a girl or a woman want to get branded? Or, a guy either, unless maybe you were in the service (or jail)?

   There's a woman in my neighborhood; she owns a coffeshop. The first time I went in there, she was working behind the counter. She's on the thin side, long dark hair, and intense. Kind of reminded me of my second wife. Her coffeshop is a bohemian grunge sort of joint. But they make good coffee and have fresh bagels and muffins, and breakfast is hard to come by in my neighborhood, so I'm there. So I order my bagel from her: the coffee is 'fix-it-yourself'. When I look at her, I'm mostly focusing on her face, which is pretty, but stressed out. She has a kind of build I like, too. But then I notice something else. She's got tatoos. Let me describe the main tatoo, it's all on her arm, I mean shoulder to forearm. It's a concentration camp. There's a tatoo of an ugly barbed wire fence, all around the arm, and behind that there's some kind of 'barracks', and looming over all of it is a guard tower, with a water tank on top. This is all one one rather skinny arm. I'm stunned. I stare at it, but she's busy fussing, doing this and that, so she doesn't notice me.

   When she fixes my bagel, I go to pay her. But I gotta ask. I say, 'Miss, can I ask you a question?' 'Sure' she says. 'Why do you have a concentration camp tatooed on your arm?' 'Whadda you mean' she says. 'Your arm. Why do you have a tatoo of a concentration camp on your arm?' She laughs nervously and looks at her arm. 'Oh, that! that's not a concentration camp. That's just a picture of an old factory that I saw when I lived in Kansas.' 'Oh, well, it had me fooled, what with the barbed-wire and the guard tower and all. I was just curious.' 'Oh, I don't even think about it.' 'Well, it certainly stands out!' She strarts to get fidgety, so I pay her for the bagel and coffee and go sit down and eat. A pretty woman running her own business with a concentration camp tatooed on her arm.

   Now, this coffeshop, they get a lot of the neighborhood 'alternative' crowd in there. Actually, our neighborhood has a tradition of having a lot of communal living and even squatters back in the day. So I started going in there on a semi-regular basis, just because it's hard to get a decent breakfast sandwich and coffee in the neighborhood. And I start looking at the girls who go in there. Women, actually, since a lot are at least 25-30 years of age. And all these women have tatoos. Not just a little butterfly or something like that. But big snakes tatooed on their backs, or their arms. A lot of different occult symbols. Pyramids. Wicca stuff. Some of the tatoos are well done. But they are ugly. They do nothing to enhance the woman's natural beauty. In fact, they are the most non-feminine markings I have ever seen. Tatoos all over their legs, too. And these women have all kinds of piercings, too. Pierced noses, multiple piercings on their ears, pierced lips. I haven't seen their genitals. Also, a lot of them don't like to shave their underarms. And some of them have body odor. Not all. Some wear natural oils and appear to take a bath.

   Now the men. Almost uniformly skinny, like preying mantises. Bald heads, or real short hair. I guess it's called the 'metrosexual look' where then men seem to want to look like fags. And they have tatoos, too. The same ugly occult shit, but mostly just on their arms and legs. The girls seem to go for the big tatoos on the back. They have piercings, too.

   The people I've been talking about here are white, primarily. There are a few black lesbians who come in who are tatooed. To see the tatooed blacks, you just have to walk down the street. Seems that every homeboy and home girl has a tatoo, but the tatoos the blacks have are generally less elaborate, and look more like jail tatoos. Just black lines with some simple image or simple message on black skin. Nothing artistic here, just some self-mutilation with a personal message. And not just the young blacks. The older home-girls (in their 20's) have them, too, and if you can read them, a lot of time ther's a 'sexy' message inscribed. Like 'Booty-licious' or some other nonesense. Some of the black guys go for martila arts or 'kung-fu' type tatoos. One guy I saw today had a very elaborate one on his whole bicept. It looked like three curved blades or swords intelocking.Have you ever seen the logo of the famous Rockefeller led Trilateral Commission? It looked something like that. Most revolting, and you will see it a lot in the hot weather, is to see a fat 'sister' with her stomach hanging out, her tits popping out, and her ass hanging out, with a mess of 'jail tatoos' on her arm. Baby, what's up with that shit?!!!

   I wrote about the retardation problem in America in my last essay. This is really just a continuation. Why do Americans want make themselves so ugly? What is the reasoning here? Everyone has a mirror. Maybe some of these people own faulty mirrors, that don't reflect. They certainly don't reflect on themselves. My neighborhood is also home to a lot of African immigrants. I have never seen one with a tatoo, certainly never on the women, and they would be horrified to degrade their bodies this way. But what is the mental sate of Americans, when we feel the need for this gross display of bad taste and self-mutilation? Well, as the song says, 'I guess I just don't know.' I am 'tatoo-free', FYI.

Kulture #1

  I just got out of a Wendy's fast-food restaraunt. I go to fast-food places a couple times a week. What I noticed at this particular Wendy's was an overiding sense of hostility, depression and resignation on the faces of all the workers there, from the cooks to cashiers to the manager, a pretty 30-something woman, who looks like she is ageing a year for every week she works there.

   Now, you might say: 'Big fucking deal!...who wants to work in a fast-food joint?'. And you would be correct. But let me put my feelings into some perspective.

   Behind me in line were three foreigners, well-dressed, one an Oriental, another looked like he was from Eastern Europe, and the third guy I didn't really focus on. They looked like they might be part of the foreign technocrat folks that corporations are bringing to America to take our jobs, because they work for less and won't cause problems. But they seemed to be nice guys.

   So I said to the Oriental, 'You know, we ought to be happy that these people are just dishing out our food, and not really cooking it; do you see how hostile and surly they all are? Good they're not back in a kitchen somewhere really cooking, because then they might spit in your sandwich.' The Oriental guy gave me a funny look at first, then him and his buddies took a look at the cashiers and sandwich makers and go-fers and said, 'You know, you're right'.

   So then I told them, 'You know it wasn't always like this. My dad used to take me to the first McDonald's that opened in Philadelphia, back in the middle 60's, and when you went there, McDonald's had a policy that you would always get your food within 60 seconds. The help were always friendly, they actually took some pride in what they were doing, even if it was only grilling burgers, the joint was clean, and, to top it off, a hamburger was 15 cents, french fries cost a dime, and a soda or a  milk-shake was 20 cents. Now, the prices are 10 to 20 times what they were, the service stinks even though they have all these expensive computers to keep track of the orders. And the food even tasted better back then.'

    This is a small snap-shot of how America has changed. Things have gotten too big, too impersonal, just too TOO! Now, I guess this to be expected: situations arise and evolve and devolve. Empires rise and fall, except events move at a very fast speed in 2008.

    We are still the richest nation in the world, in a certain sense. But, somehow it has all become hollow. Consumer culture is one of the emptiest forms of 'civilization' that have come down the pike. The human race needs to do productive and meaningful work to prosper. Meaningful work has almost disappeared from the American landscape. The whole concept of the 'service economy' was a misconception from the git, this meaning of 'service' being akin to what a prostitute gives to a john.

    What is real service? Real service is a human being giving a meaningful part of their time and themselves to worthwhile work, for the community and the greater good. This kind of service in turn rewards the individual who gives it by enriching him/her and enlarging their worldview. We do not value real service, although we expect and in fact demand to be 'serviced'

   Of course, we must also talk about labour. The National Socialists had a famous sign outside one of their internment camps that said 'Work will set you free'. Of course, the work they demanded was slave labour. This kind of labour is not a source of freedom. But the saying was still true, in the sense that a man profits from a labour that he enjoys and loves, and profits when he can enjoy the fruits of that labour. But labour has been cheapened, and meaningful labour elimanted from modern society for a large mass of people. We now have 'virtual labour'. This builds nothing; it only serves to illustrate how alienated we have allowed ourselves to become from our basic need to build something real.

   Those foreign guys I met at the Wendy's are new to Amerika. To them, it is an opportunity for a new start, hopefully a better life, maybe money they can send to a family back in Vietnam, India or Romania. What they don't realize is that they are now in a hollowed out shell of what was once a great nation. Most Americans don't even realize this, because they have become worshippers of a different god, one who specializes in the process of 'hollowing out'.