Wolf Food

2006-04-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

Consolidation

To pick up the thread, go get a helping of Wolf Food.

2006-03-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

Why Respect Religion?

After the Danish cartoons making fun of Islam, I have to ask: why respect religion? Any religion?

Religions are made up by men to control everybody else. They are especially constructed to control the sexuality of women.

Should we respect Nazism just because somebody believes in it? Should we respect the KuKlux Klan just because the members may fervently believe in the need to support the purity of their race?

These are beliefs based in nothing but control. They have no valid proofs. They are cruel. In so many ways, they are like so many religions.

This is not to say that everyone should be forced to give up their religion. If they wish to believe in Giant Magic Sky Fairies, let them. If they hate watching women and gay people having free, happy lives, then let them stew in their own hate. If they are fools who let priests and ministers and rabbis and mullahs tell them what to think, based on ancient unproven mythologies, then let them do so.

As long as their beliefs do not become the laws of other people who don't believe in those religions, then let them lie to themselves any way they please. In fact, if they do wish their beliefs to become law, let ONLY the practitioners of those religions be forced to obey those laws.

Go ahead. Chant torah. Hang out of a mosque and howl. Have your own rape-induced babies. Embalm your dead becauses you believe a rotten corpse is going to rise someday. Moan and groan and complain because your kids will fall behind in the Sciences -- and may someday walk off and deny you and your nonsense. Why should anyone care if you make a fool of yourself? As long as you don't try to practice your nonsense on anybody else, you can kneel down and moan to an imaginary spirit all you please.

You do know that the best liberals and the purest atheists come from the most conservative and religious households? Because they've been damaged by your beliefs and the moment they get their hands on a decent bit of education, they can see you for what you are -- and they will be angry and hurt that you lied to them for so long. WE don't have to have kids -- you will supply our population all by yourselves. As long as you can breed and your kids can think, you will lose them to us. We're certainly not going to lie to them. Lies are just too much hard work.

Your right to practice your religion -- like the right to swing your fist -- ends where my rights and my nose begin.

Your smarter kids will agree.

2006-03-06T16:20:00.000-08:00

Tiger Trap For The Right Wing.

You have to hand it to the Founding Fathers.

They let slavery alone when writing the constitution.

After what would finally become the United States fought a war partially over the question of the treatment of human beings, the trap left by the old men in powdered wigs yawned open beneath the feet of those who would treat anybody as less than human.

You don't want women to vote? "This country once considered slavery legal."

You don't want blacks to have equal treatment? "This country once considered slavery legal."

You want to treat Other gender preferances as less than human? "This country once considered slavery legal."

No matter what action this country takes, if it treats ANYONE as less than human, as merely seperate but equal, as anything but a fully and completely American citizen, that treatment, no matter how "legal" can bring up the reminder that slavery was once legal in this country, and that no other practice that treats any American as less than fully human can be allowed to stand.

By allowing slavery to remain in place during a period of this country's history, the founders made it possible to forever after paint any less than human treatment as on a level with slavery, regardless of legality, in that it doesn't allow for full citizenship.

Pretty smart, those old guys.

And -- "They had them some fabulous wigs."

2006-02-06T12:57:00.000-08:00

Scapegoats -- America's Big Dirty Secret.

Lately, when speaking with people who are afraid of or uncertain about their LGBT fellow human beings, I've found more confusion and fear than real hatred. I've been approached by folks from bikers to housewives and always with the same questions:

Again and again, these people have been sexually abused by some family member. They ask me if their dad/brother/uncle was gay. Does that "make them gay" for submitting?

I explain to them that these attacks are by sick people, not part of a normal loving human relationship. That they have nothing to do with whether someone is gay or not. That sex is for consenting adults. That nobody is either gay or straight or in any little box based on one forced moment.

But I'm beginning to seriously wonder -- is the LGBT community being scapegoated for the attacks of so-called "straight" family members? Is the hatred and fear of LGBT citizens based less on biblical texts -- and more on sexual child abuse?

Is the attack on the LGBT community just a cover for America's dirty big secret of child abuse?

For some reason complete strangers open up to me about this. All the time. It's heartbreaking, to hear what their relatives did to them, and the pain they're still in. Sometimes they speak to me in code. Sometimes -- with the help of alcohol -- the language is very plain.

In every case, the victims hunch over tables or sit in cars and whisper intently to me, as though I'm the first person they've ever been able to tell this to, and they know I won't betray them. They all blame themselves, like there was something they did to bring on the attack.

Sometimes they get very intent on what "gay people do" or what a gay person "really" is. I try not to get too clinical. One very church lady got into an intense discussion of what transexuals are and do. There are a lot of hang-ups about sex roles, but there's also a deep interest in the true story, rather than the propaganda.

(I get this concerning all sorts of things, including the war in Iraq. Again and again, I've seen an American pull den deutschen Blick -- the German glance -- what the Germans called it when you looked over your shoulder before talking in the Third Reich. I even had this happen at a pro-war rally, when the marchers could get away from their fellows and hiss whispered questions at me. How many damn things are we whispering about in this country?)

The guys who jump these kids are always "straight" (whatever that EVER means). "Normal" Americans. And they're letting the gay community take the rap for them. Not only abusing kids, but hiding behind the LGBT community. Bastards.

A friend's comment: "I had a friend who was homophobic, years ago, who seemed to think that all gay males were pedephiles. The reason this came up for discussion was that Robert Reed of the Brady Bunch had been outed. My friend immediately made the jump to: "I'll bet those poor kids on the show were all abused by him". I was dumbfounded. So yeah, I think you may be on to something."

2005-12-09T11:18:00.000-08:00

Real Christians

I'm not Christian, myself -- but the values I follow are much closer to the values preached by the original founder of Christianity. Too often, what we call Christianity in this country is a grab-bag of more ancient religions and political constructs.

But the -- and I hesitate to say "real" Christians -- seem to be so lost, confused and misdirected in the face of all these later traditions and have lost track of what is basically a very simple, easy, reasonable set of rules for life. The founder of the religion got killed because he wouldn't keep his mouth shut (and being as sarcastic as he was probably didn't make any points, either). Where are the Christians today willing to stand up to, fight and push back the practitioners of the cruel scrambled mess that the Christian right claim is Chritianity? Why are they allowing the word "Christian" to become just another word for "Bigot?"

And yes, I've heard it used. When someone was saying ugly things about my gay friends, someone else sneered, "You must be Christian."

Christians need to stand up to the people that are painting them with the brush of intolerance, bigotry and hatred for anything female, even men who are like women. Or the word "Christian" is going to end up on the same level as "Pharisee."

If it hasn't already.

2005-11-26T09:41:00.000-08:00

Gay Comics List Review.

http://gaycomicslist.free.fr/pages/blogarch.php?month=2005-11#187

Francis Peneaud, on the Gay Comics Review List. I'm glad that the positive as well as the horribly nihilistic message came through.

2005-10-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Saddam

Saddam Hussein's trial starts tomorrow.

Regardless of his crimes against his own people, a death sentence will silence him forever.

Do we really want a source and witness for possible future prosecutions of pertinent parties to disappear permanently?

And who among these parties might -- for their own protection through his being silenced -- most benefit?

2005-07-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

Goodbye, Baby, Goodbye.

Nobody actually has to worry about us ‘murkins or our empire any more.

An empire gets to build one infrastructure before it collapses by dumping everything it has into a war.

The 9/11 boys took us out in 2001. And I mean took us OUT. When they hit us they didn’t leave a nice clean flesh wound from which we could recover, or which we could overcome enough to fight.

What they did was inject us with a nasty, withering disease. A shot of cancer right into the brain, from which it would spread into every limb of government and society.

We already had Empire Rot. Now we’ve got Imperial Paranoia.

The 9/11 lads don’t need to do a thing more, because the spores are spreading through the leviathan’s body. Now they can just sit back and watch our own neurosis and paranoia and war fever grind us down to a nub.

All you need is 50 cents ‘murkin and a phone booth. Call Washington DC and tell ‘em you’re setting a bomb in an American airport – maybe, maybe not – for the next 20 years. It’d lock this country down ‘till 2050. Don’t look at me like I’m sharing secrets with the T’urrists – they’ve probably already thought of this. When we’ve stopped mucking around overseas, somebody’s going to be wandering around with a change-purse full of quarters and a DC phone book. Once an empire has lost it, it’s no problem making it spin in circles like a robot on one leg. Any high-school kid can do it.

And probably will.

And no, we’re not going to recover. America was built with capitalism – cheap or free labor and cheap or free resources. We’ve been so desperate for the former we’ve bought people and bred them like cattle. Every time we run out of the latter, we invade a little further across a continent or over an ocean. In 1941 we ran into another empire invading back the other way – and we’re still whining about it.

We’ve gone through our resources like newlyweds in the bridal suite. The honeymoon’s over. What’s next? Mars? You need an entire planet’s economic engine to back space travel. And capitalism don’t fuel that.

Europe and China can just turn their backs on us and ignore us as an economic rival. We can’t compete economically because everything we have is being sucked into the war machine. We can’t rebuild our infrastructure or care for our citizens or educate our children because we’re so busy destroying everybody else’s. We’re not going to get those resources – if those countries we invade don’t surrender, we can’t work the oil wells. If they do, and become democracies – they’ll ship their oil to China or whoever else will make them a good deal on it. And if they do become fake democracies, we won’t be able to get the bodies in this country to keep them occupied – and their own people are not going to play Scots Guards or Ghurkas and keep their own people down and delivering.

The British Empire experience has taught the occupied how to deal with the occupier (and a lot of these messes we’re in are old British turds we should have the sense not to try to sop up for them. I mean, what is this – nostalgia for the Mother Country?). Vietnam taught American parents how to get their kids listed as official conscientious objectors. The Germans taught us about every goddamn thing else. This time, we see ‘em coming – and the fact that they’re not wearing jackboots is fooling NOBODY. We don’t call ‘em Suits for nothing. Uniform is uniform is uniform. And these pirates have already realized they’ve hit the ship below the waterline – they’re taking theirs before they have to get out along the rat lines and let it go down. They do it to individual industries – including the comics industry – and they do it to countries. Our turn, that’s all.

In the meantime, because we’ve allowed our entire travel infrastructure to either go to pot or not get built, and because airplanes are so expensive to run on oil, there’ll be less and less ability to travel within our own huge territories. Maybe my dream that all conventions will become virtual will come true. Everybody goes online for a weekend and nobody has to get onto those GD airplanes that somebody’s going to target as a flying gas-bomb anyway.

So who’s taking bets on when the exhausted, starved Empire goes down on its face?

9/11 – more bang for the buck. I am so fucking happy I’m living out here in the middle of nowhere and I can catch fish.

And if it will make you feel any better, the reason that humans are slowly becoming more peaceful may be because the violent ones are killing each other off. It’s probably why the Germans are such a very nice people now. So maybe there’s hope for the rest of us – but all you moms and dads out there with mean kids are just going to have to resign yourself to spending a lot of time saying goodbye to the little war-mongers in a national cemetery.

WE won’t miss them, but too bad for you. Think of it as a sacrifice for the future of the race. If that makes you feel any better…

Very pukey: American troops sending back pictures of them playing with happy Iraqi children. After they’ve bombed their homes and killed their relatives ("Insurgents." "Terrorists." yada yada) and are working their butts off to destroy their entire cultural heritage – which is the cultural heritage of the western human race -- simply because the Christian Right is fixated on those lines in their holy book about Babylon.

I guess with the insurgents taking out anybody who gets near an American, the poor kids are grateful for any grown-ups they can get near, even the invaders. Why not? Can anybody say, “baksheesh” or “Hey, GI, you got candy?” or “Now we’ve wiped out these Injuns we’ll send their kids to the Injun school.”?

As Robert Frost said: “War is for everybody, for children too.”

2005-01-24T10:36:00.000-08:00

Beef And The Bling-Bling

Comment for the beef-raisers out there who are so worried about the rest of us eating their product and supporting their industry:

So, when do you show up on my street wearing the bling-bling and popping a cap in my ass?

Most industrial beef is loaded with antibiotics, growth hormones and feed-lot stress chemicals. It's fed garbage. If I'm going to eat beef -- why don't I just go out to a dumpster behind a hospital and eat out of it? It would be just as healthy for me.

Expecting me to eat your poisonous product to support you and your families is like expecting me to buy crack to support you -- and if you're a cartel, to support the towns you run.

You're just another gangsta, beef-boy.

2005-01-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

Eat This

This is so weird.

Who cares about the beef cattle on either side of the border?

That feedlot beef is of stress toxins, growth hormones, antibiotics, fed on corn and chicken manure and sawdust -- you might as well just go and eat out of a hospital waste dumpster that somebody's been dumping the catbox in.

And keeping these people's jobs?

They're part of a huge system that killed off the massive wild meat machine of the prairies -- the buffalo, so they could bring in their weak, badly-adapted African-origin cattle. So they could give us few options except their third-rate crap product.

We're supposed to keep them in business at the cost of our health and the health of the future of the prairies?

How greedy can you get? How short-sighted and self-centered?

A pox on the beef breeders, on both sides of those imaginary lines they call a border.

And it looks like they're GETTING that pox, doesn't it?

2005-01-02T16:31:00.000-08:00

Breathing Room

The earthquake that created the South East Asian tsunami was created by plate techtonics.

The movements of the plates are what drive the Rock Cycle -- the massive machinery that cycles carbon dioxide and ultimately oxygen through the body and atmosphere of planet earth.

Without earthquakes, none of us gets to breathe.

And the release pressures that took out one side of the planet's primate population also spared everybody else around the Ring of Fire -- and probably gave the rest of us around the Pacific Rim a breather. One of these days we'll get slammed again, but until then, the people in SE Asia died so we could live.

That's about the only way I can handle the twinges of survivor guilt I keep getting. It'll be our turn next.

2004-12-31T16:54:00.000-08:00

Who do you love?

Here's a thought for the New Year:

There are really only two kinds of societies, and you get to live in one of them:

Socialism, or Feudalism.

If your government is taking care of you, it's Socialism. You won't have to sleep on the street.

If it's taking care of itself, it's Feudalism. And only one guy gets to be king.

Happy New Year, America! Here's hoping you get blankets for that street time.

2004-12-19T08:04:00.000-08:00

First They Came For The Horses

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/204346_wildhorses18.html

Bush's latest attack on something he can't control is just evidence of the fearful and greedhead worldview of a spoiled, nasty glutton.

This is what his ancestors did to the tribal peoples of America. This is what he wants to do to all
of us. His people already have us accepting the term "consumer" -- no more than
slaughterhouse animals. This is not just some little attack against animals. This is an attack
against a spiritual heartland and soul.

This is the filth we have to fight. And yes, it DOES apply to you. If you want to be free, to make
your own decisions -- this man and his like want to corral you in Festung America, to make you
trot to their rules, to let you die without kindness.

"First they came for the horses."

(Originally from a friend: "Hi! Here is a story from today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the
5,000 wild horses that roam Washington's Horse Heaven Hills, and always will, thanks to the
Yakama Nation. I loved reading it. Except the part about how George W. Bush thinks wild
horses deserve to be dog food and sneaked in legislation (, as he loves to do) that they can be
sold and immediately sent to slaughter, reversing the hard work of all the dedicated people who
fought to protect them. The two horse slaughterhouses in the U.S. are in Texas, of course.")

Yup. And what do you bet that GreedBoy gets a few bucks from every horse hung up and gutted.

If I were a Texan, I'd be heading to the Whitehouse for a lynching about now. Talk about having dirt put on your name. All Americans are seen as Prisoner Torturers by the world, now -- so I guess all you Texans are horse-killers.

What you gonna do about it? Boy?

2004-12-01T15:48:00.000-08:00

Save The Children

I've been following the childfree/parent arguments lately.

I'm child free. Conscious decision. But there's part of this argument that needs to be expressed.

The following is gonna shock the heck out of you, but it's a growing problem. It's linked to the human infestation -- officially, biologically, we're no longer a population. Biomass to living space, we're an infestation. People are feeling more and more stress and despair as our human mass grows. As primates, the screaming of our offspring begins to set off destruction buttons in our heads. For a very specific reason.

A screaming child is a distressed or abandoned or frightened child. It means there's trouble in the troop. Any predator hearing it is going to laser in on the troop. There's a reason we call a shrieking child Hyena Bait.

Primates are driven to either care for the offspring, or -- if the screaming cannot be stopped -- to destroy it. They have to do it for the good of the troop. It's hard-wired into them.

Now I don't mind being around kids. Kids up here even run up and hug me (they're pretty good kids up here actually). I like to do things for them. They're fun, and funny.

But the screaming sound.... it makes me start twitching. I want it to stop. I want it to stop SOOO bad that I began to feel the profound urge to follow the urges of the Cannibal Aunt.

On an airplane, if a child is shrieking (and goddamn the parents who take tiny infants onto airplanes so their tiny eardrums begin to scar from badly-pressurized cabins -- that's baby torture, plain and simple,and the parents deserve to be horsewhipped) I will go absolutely white and nauseated. The bad pressure just makes it worse. I've caught my fingers literally twitching, in an urge to throttle that sound.

I just warn parents who are letting their kids scream or run into overstressed adult primates that -- well -- they want to be careful at airports or anyplace else humans feel crowded.

Over-crowded primates can whirl around and use extremely powerful hands to very quickly do a great deal of damage. I can get very very distracted at airports. And I have an artists' powerful hands. And my reactions are very very fast. I'd feel sorry afterwards, of course, but the damage would be done. I have a great deal of self-control, so it probably won't happen -- but what about somebody who acts first, thinks later?

Parents who don't CARE if their kids get their heads twisted off don't have to worry. Remember, these are the people who take their kids onto airplanes, damn their vicious souls.

I am not kidding about this. This is going to happen, and not necessarily from me. Somebody is going to whirl around and twist a kid's head off. It's a growing danger.

I really really don't want to see this -- and I don't want to be the one to do it. But what can you do, when the parents won't listen to growing despair and desperation? All you can do is warn them.

And pray to whatever you worship that they will listen.

Oh, and before you gasp and claim this would never happen -- babies are shaken to death and smothered all the times by their own parents, simply because they will not stop screaming. If the parents will do this, how much more dangerous would an adult be who has absolutely nothing invested in this child?

For gods' sake, have fewer children, or guard and control the ones you have.

Stop the tragedy before it begins -- and becomes an epidemic.

2004-11-30T14:37:00.000-08:00

Veterans For Common Sense

Right from their email. VCS are the people who have already been shot at for oil/colonial wars, and don't want it to happen again.

I was in the US Army, which is why I'm on their list.

Have at.

Dear VCS Members and Supporters:
Normally we don't send out more than one email in a week, but when events warrant we will send more in order to keep you updated.
Our campaign questioning the nomination of Alberto Gonzales is gaining traction in Washington and the interest of the mainstream media. In the last 24 hours VCS director Charles Sheehan-Miles has conducted three major radio interviews in Los Angeles, New York and Tampa, Florida to discuss the campaign, and this afternoon the conservative Washington Times ran an article covering VCS' work on the nomination.
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/NewsArticle.cfm?ID=2481
We're getting this interest from the media because of your incredible response to our letter, which now has 2,300 signatures.
Additionally, a super volunteer graphic designer has stepped forward to make our ad a reality. We've raised just enough funds to place the ad (which will be a 5-foot by 4-foot-high backlit poster) in the Capitol South metro station (which most of the Congressional aides take to work), but need to raise more the truly reach as many people as possible (we'd also like to place the ads in Union Station, on the other side of the Capitol).
We'd like to ask you to consider three things today:
1) First, let your friends, family, and colleagues know about the letter opposing Gonzales and ask them to sign it. The more signatures we have on the letter, the more seriously the Senate will have to take it.
2) If you participate in a weblog, discussion group or bulletin board on the internet, or have a group which meets off-line, let them know about the letter and ask them to sign it. You can send them this link to sign-up: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/campaigns/attygen.cfm.
If you post it somewhere on the internet, let us know so we can track where the signatures are coming from. You can send that to contact@veteransforcommonsense.org
3) If you haven't made a gift to help fund the ad, please consider doing so. We've raised just over three thousand dollars since this time yesterday, but to place as many ads as possible, we need to raise more, so we can get a contract on additional space locked in this week. Contributions made on-line by midnight tonight will have the greatest impact, because we'll be able to lock in the ad space this week.
To see the early draft of the ad, visit:http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/NewsArticle.cfm?ID=2470
To make a contribution, click here:
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=3422
Thank you again for your support.
P.S. Are you a wordsmith? VCS could use one or more volunteers to work together to help reshape the language in the ad to make it as effective as possible.
Interested? Join the discussion here: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/discussion/viewtopic.php?p=13253

Please visit Veterans for Common Sense at www.veteransforcommonsense.org
Update your email preferences and member information

2004-11-26T16:03:00.000-08:00

My Life As A Terrorist

Because of the paranoia the 9/11 guys set off among the Levitican wimps in Jesusland, all you need to close this country down is enough quarters to make phone calls to every major airport and tell 'em you've left a bomb in their restroom, and they'll freak. Talk about getting more bang for your buck.

In the early ‘80’s I was a file-puller in a University student records room file room. The position of Holds Officer opened up. This was the person who basically told students who were in debt for anything to the University, “Give us back our volleyball or you don't get a copy of your records.” It paid much better than file-puller. I applied, and was surprised when I was immediately hired.

I very soon discovered that my assistant was a 50-year-old Phillipina woman who knew the position inside out, and who got paid less than me (I was in my 20's).

Something was wrong, here. No way should I have been her boss. I should have been running errands for her and getting her rice+ for lunch.

A little inquiry found pay dirt in another girl in the records department who was Jewish. She said that everybody knew that the two Jewish women who ran the department thought I was Jewish. While I have Jewish ancestry, I do not practice; I just look like some of my ancestors. Nevertheless, management supposedly favored me over the older woman, for reasons of race.

On the one hand, the other girl wasn't happy with the bosses. On the other hand, these two bosses were the kind of pinheads who would pull that kind of stunt.

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t know what to do about it. And I didn't know if it were true or not. I couldn’t exactly accuse my bosses of racial hiring, not in that time and place. I wasn't a disgruntled employee, but I wasn't a happy one either. All I could do was do my job. Records-keeping being boring, I started playing with that job.

To make things interesting, I created a German code to be used in the control of records on Hold. Since I have a degree in German Language and Literature, including medieval, military and some commercial forms, the code consisted of initials based on archaic Italianate German banking terms, which I used to mark the Holds Records.

Example:

Kg: Kreuzverweis geleistet (Auf bibliotheksperrvollbemaechtigungen: Kg/Hb)
= Kg: Cross-reference created (Hold authorized by the library Kg/Hb).

It was so arcane, that "Troublemakers" -- these were two guys who were just a hassle-- were marked with a drawing of a stylized Tudor rose. Well, Henry the 8th wasn't the nicest guy, either. This is how twisted this code got. And how bored an employee can get.

Since all students owe the University something sometime in the course of their college career, almost all active student records pass through the hands of the Holds Officer. ALL records are done by hand, since they are legal documents.

It took a complete four quarters to codify all the records with my code. That's a year. That's a lot of pulling files, penciling and erasing, and making sure it was right. My code became rooted throughout the University records. It wasn't going to be easy to extract. I began to take a kind of introspective glee in watching the coded records pile up.

In the meantime, I’d been looking for another job, and about that time I got a bite. So I gave my two week's notice to the University. Right before the beginning of Spring registration, when the largest turnover of records occurs.

And then I realized why I had been codifying the Holds process. I have a tendency to do things in my subconscious, for reasons that don’t become clear sometimes for years. Three days after giving notice, when hundreds of records had been pulled and placed on my desk, ready for me to process, I quietly took the card with the German code on the back of it home with me -- and didn't come in the next day.

I ran into a fellow files worker a couple years later.

"My God," she said. "The whole place freaked. Holds bring the whole University to a stop; we couldn't process any records until we knew if the students had paid their balances. It was pandemonium."

"Did my assistant get the job?"

"Oh, yeah. She was the only one who said she knew what to do."

"I'll bet."

I'd left her a copy of the code. So she’d gotten my job -- at the proper pay. Right race or not.

These days, anybody causing the breakdown of a major institution would be called a Terrorist.

Hm. Long slow preparation. Researching the internal system. Cheap method: all I needed was a pencil, an eraser, patience, and a legitimate grievance. Ultimate goal: to rectify institutional abuse and regain civil rights, for myself or my fellows.

Terrorist? By these definitions?

Guilty as charged.

Go thou and do likewise.

2004-11-25T13:49:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

To all my U.S. friends and colleagues -- Happy Thanksgiving!

And to all my other friends and colleagues -- the Americans are all sitting down to eat and mostly not bugging anybody today.

So Happy Thanksgiving anyway.

2004-11-20T15:38:00.000-08:00

Better than Stalks

C. S. Lewis said it best in his essay wherein the demon don addresses the newly-graduated class of demonlettes.

The common people don't like anybody who is better than they are.

Or may even be perceived as better than they are.

Or who they think, when they're not zoning out in a company-town factory line or leaving rotting decapitated elk carcases in the clear-cut forests, may even begin to be nudging toward the edge of thinking they might be maybe sorta kinda almost better than they are.

I got news for the common people.

We ARE better than you are. We don't stick our heads in the sand. We don't poop out kids left and right when there are 6 billion humans -- officially an infestation -- on the planet. We don't ignore what's going on and let our governments grab those kids and send 'em off to oil wars.

We don't whimper that the reason we voted for a vile, corrupted government was that we were afraid the other candidate might look down upon us. That a candidate might "flip-flop" on us. You knew Bushy boy was going to flip-flop on you the moment he got in office and you went for it anyway. You preferred the greater of the two evils -- because it threw you the greater lie.

Who couldn't look down upon you? Your mistakes, ignorances and greed lead to death, filth and destruction. They threaten OUR lives. The corporate pirates you follow with your tongues out would sell us air, if they could get away with it, like they sell us water. We're supposed to feel gentleness and commisseration toward you? We're supposed to be compassionate toward you? It's all ab0ut you, isn't it?

I've heard you people use lines like, "I hate trees. If there were no trees, it would be easier to get to the elk and deer." And then you look at me like you think it's funny to torque me off. Guess what? You're disgusting to even think that might be funny. I've seen the rotten carcasses and piles of uncovered human shit you leave by clean streams. Me? Arrogant? Me, totally nauseated by you. Not scared -- just sick to my stomach. You people act like malaria.

I've heard you say things like, "I was talking to an atheist -- how can somebody be good if they don't believe in God?"

I'll tell you how, you Red dorkweeds. You grow up. You don't need spankings. You leave behind the things of childhood -- the brainlessness. The lack of self control. The playing with guns (and no, I don't mean you should just add beer).

Tell you what. I'll get over accusing you of being a bunch of foul ignorant slobs -- when you stop being those same.

We're the arrogant ones? Don't make me puke.

2004-11-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

They've come to Jesusland. Make 'em swallow it.

Hey, how many of you stuck in Jesusland would be really torqued off if I started addressing packages with:

Name
address
city state zip
Jesusland

Why don't we all start doing that? Like we write "Great Britain" or "Germany" or "Israel" under the address? When a package is going out of the country. These people are living on another planet -- let's make sure the post office doesn't get them mixed up with us.

They wanna be Jesusland... we'll MAKE 'em Jesusland.

They should have been careful what they prayed for.

(And for those of you who are forced to live in Jesusland -- there is refuge for you in Freedomland, any time you want it).

>^..^<
www.stinz.com

2004-11-05T10:27:00.001-08:00

Fucking Crusaders

An email conversation between myself and a friend. THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS. I DID NOT WRITE THIS. HE DID.

I am NOT naming names. But this is NOT a time to become like the rest of the fundamentalists, of ANY religion. And anybody sends me stuff like this is going to get it used as a bad
example.

FACT.

So I want to repeat -- I DID NOT WRITE THIS. If I wanted to read crap like this, I'd look up AngryAryan.

And you guys do NOT want us girls to start looking around for the biggest group of terrorists on this planet. You know who you are.

Dear Donna,

Yesterday morning Theo van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam by a Moroccan who is affiliated with radical religious fundamentalists. THIS IS VERY BAD NEWS. Theo was a director of films, columnist, maker of TV programs and one of the main proponents of free speech in the Netherlands and had a habit of not mincing words, insulting self-important people left, right and center. Recently he had completed a movie about wife beating among the muslims on religious grounds (called Submission part one) and he had nearly finished a film about the assassination of Pim Fortuyn, 2 years ago. Now he has been murdered by a "goatfucker", to quote his own words. A goatfucker that was affiliated to a group watched by the Dutch Internal Security Service. Sorry, but now I have to rant and rave for a while. I am so fucking angry. Not that I liked van Gogh very much, but it is what he stood for. This calls out for an end to tolerance. No more! I am so sick and tired of these muslim bastards. How come that even if not all muslims are terrorists, all fucking terrorists are muslims? The cabinet fears that now there will be a division along ethnic lines and calls upon the town councils to talk to muslim organisations. Surprise! That is already happening! I don't want to see any goatfuckers in my area. And these "prophet's pimps" (another van Gogh quote) are going to deserve anything they'll get. Dutch tolerance will take a beating and the country will harden more and more. This is not a good moment to be muslim, even if you are integrated as hell. Frankly, I see only two options. Either the muslims integrate so much they stop being muslim, or there's the Israeli solution. Now all we can do is wait to see what happens.

Ha, that gave some relief

My answer:

Calm down.

All terrorists are NOT muslim. Through most of OUR history, they have been Christians. You're just living in a very small part of our history. We started it. Or our ancestors did -- and left us to clean up the mess.

Fucking Crusaders.

Take a deep breath, get some perspective and get back to work to get rid of ALL the undamentalists, including ours. Jail time is what murderers need, not useless misdirected attacks on people who look or pray like them because we can't catch the ones we want.

And we HAVE the Israeli solution in THIS country (USA) -- you ask any member
of a First Nation. You want to live with THAT memory? We'll never get over
that.

Donna
>^..^<
www.stinz.com

2004-10-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

The White House Hates Women and Kids

And always has.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/100000_war_crimes.php

The biggest casualties in war are ALWAYs the people trying to live their lives around these spoiled murderous babies we call soldiers. And all the wars America has been in since oil was discovered have been oil wars, in one way or another.

Is it true that Americans really don't care about anyone but themselves?

Who have you been worried about?

Donna (Earthling) Barr
("Patriotic" comes from patria = fatherland, and what's THAT tell you?)

2004-07-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

Expecting Gratitude for being a Mercenary.

I guess soldiers back from Iraq are all surprised they're getting called "Baby-killer" like the Vietnam troops occasionally did.

Let's see... there's 800 dead Americans and allied troops and contractors.

14,000 dead Iraqis, a lot of 'em women and kids.

Most of the world didn't want this to happen -- Spain's leaders just got their asses voted out for supporting it. People all over the world didn't want it to happen, just their flunky lap-dog leaders.

Soldiers who carry guns into other countries and get shot and are ALL surprised have always been confusing to me. Didn't they know the other guys would shoot back? Didn't anybody tell them? If you go in a house with a gun, can't you expect a home-owner to shoot you in the head? All the gun-owners say that's what should happen, right? What, it doesn't work both ways?

Sooner or later, somebody's going to get hit for these out-of-country activities. Is it the leaders and generals who get targeted? No, it's the privates and sergeants, and lower ranks on the ground. Weren't they told that? Didn't they know? Why did they think they'd get off scot-free? Because they're a people's army? Since when?

People are pissed. Dead pissed. This time it's happened faster than in Vietnam, because this time we've got the internet. Everybody feels used, abused and madder than hell. I, for one, was in protest marches saying "Don't do this shit! You'll be so fucking sorry!" So now somebody goes and does it and comes back -- we're supposed to pat him on the back? "You fucking idiot! We're sorry you were an unthinking victim! NOW do you know better?" is the kindest thing he should expect.

These troops weren't drafted -- and they could read the newspapers. They knew damn well they were going over with weapons to take out other people, for pay, in the name of the corporations, to force the end-game of what had included a lot of friendship with the very dictator they were told they were taking out. This is their job -- for pay. They weren't forced to do it. Nobody threatened them with concentration camp time, or even a punishment battalion. What would they get? A court martial? A drop in pay or rank? Please.

Now their families are whining, "These were kids just following orders!" Kids. Just Following Orders. We were Stabbed in the Back in Vietnam. Pardon me while I go throw up.

And as for a bucolic island where some of this has been going on -- Seattle's got a long history of labor battles. And it's not all that "civil."

And now Vietnam -- what military ever knows the body-count -- remember that term -- for Americans dead in Vietnam vs. civilians? Soldiers never even count the civilians at the time. They're not even there, except as people who get in your way. I mean, this is a war zone, right? What are these stupid civilians doing getting in our way? What are they complaining about? The numbers of dead civilians have to be -- ahem -- dug up later. "I protect my people" is military parlance for "And fuck everybody else." Pardon us civilians for being on our own side again. Cuz the soldiers sure as hell won't be. Not in a pinch.

Soldiers sure as hell defend their own asses. WE don't have that right?

And don't anybody give me crap about Protecting Me. Every time I get on an airplane, my life is just that more dangerous as an American because of the Oil Wars. And now I have a world-wide reputation as an abuser of prisoners. And it will never go away, because the photos are on the Net. Thank you very fucking much.

NOT.

2004-07-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

Not Another "I Told You So!"

Please.

Conservatives out there everywhere, take this to heart.

If you manage to pass the anti-gay marriage legislation, this WILL happen to you:

A certain number of your children will discover they're gay.

And you, as the grandparents, in order to pass on property and have legal rights to those children, whether blood or adopted, will have to go through all the expense that anybody outside the property-based marriage has to deal with.

YOU will suffer the consequences of what you did to the gay population.

This happens every single time.

There are no exceptions.

This happens every single time a conservative says "I know better" and passes cruel laws, or goes to war, after every liberal in sight was desperately signaling, "Don't! You idiot! You'll be so fucking SORRY!"

Do you want to -- once again! -- have to listen to liberals telling you, "Well, you fucking morons -- didn't we tell you? Weren't you paying attention? WE TOLD YOU SO."

So if you don't want the liberals doing the Cassandra Dance all over you -- AGAIN --

Don't pass this fucking bill, you fucking morons.

Or... no.... pass it... I'm getting really really fond of the Cassandra Dance, and I think I'd like a chance to do it to you.

AGAIN.

2004-07-11T13:41:00.000-07:00

How Women Think (A Guide for Testicles).

It's not sexy to cook for you. Don't take us home, show us the kitchen, a frying pan and a steak, and think it will get us wet. We don't want to go to bed with our children.

The toilet is where you leave your piss and shit. No matter how much it's cleaned, it stinks. Your piss is not perfume. It stinks. Close the lid, so we don't have to smell your stinking piss.

If we yell at you it's because we've already tried to ask you three times nicely, and you are too stupid and wrapped up in your own little arrogant child self to hear us. If you did that with a boss, you'd have been fired a long time ago. The only reason you ignore us is because we're nice, and you can get away with it. There is a word for men who have ignored us too many times -- Divorced.

Standing in a bar and proclaiming how women should know their place and keep it will NOT get you laid. Unless it's by the guy at the end of the bar who's totally getting off on your manliness. Try him -- you may get lucky.

No, we don't want slapped around. No, we don't want you to kill our children in the so many ways you're proven yourself so good at. Pound on each other, if you must. You seem to get off on it.

We don't get wet when you tell us you put your mom's pet cat in the garage, turned on the lawn mower and let the cat die of carbon monoxide poisoning. No, you didn't do it to put the poor thing out of its misery -- you did it because you'd like to do it to some human you're too much of a coward to stand up to. If you'd do it to a cat, you'd do it to a child. Our child. Don't let the door hit you in the ass, stud.

You want us. You want us much more than we want you. Because of this, we are the boss in any relationship. Get over it, accept it, and you'll be much happier. We are not slave-drivers or abusers. We are generally pretty decent, giving, friendly people. If you meet a strange woman, she's more likely to feed you than kill you. This is NOT true of you.

Our kids are our kids. Yes, you contribured your share of DNA -- but other than that and a drop of snot, you did nothing. We build the baby. That's our flesh and blood and hair and teeth walking around. That's our blood and pain. You should get on your knees in gratitude that some woman let you use her body to pass on your DNA. You're a parasitic breeder, like a virus, and you should be praying to your wife like a goddess for letting you have the opportunity to breed -- or just live.

Just because your simple industrial-built two-stroke brains can't keep up with our chip-driven hyperlinked intelligence, don't blame us for being illogical or talking too fast. Speaking is a human quality. We're better at it than you, which is just one more way we're more human than you. If you can't keep up with a mere six or eight things at a time, that doesn't make us the stupid ones.

Your idea of "honor" for us depends entirely on which one of your clam-neck meat-pops got tucked up our twats. It's all about whose penis is was, or which penis, or how many penises, or what kind. You base your entire religions on which one of you managed to bed us, and you stone and burn us to death for it. Don't try to make out the entire concept is anything but grotesque.

You should stop working your asses off to keep us down. Just think what you'd have been able to accomplish if you didn't spend half your time making sure women can't get any food, money or shelter without you as a middle-man, so we can't eat or sleep warm unless we let you put a penis in us. No, we're not going to make you into our slaves if we take over. If we even wanted to take over. We're not you -- don't judge us by your lowlife standards.

No, we DON't want to send the fruit of our wombs off to your interminable idiot meat-grinder wars. Don't call us "bitter" when you've killed our children and our husbands.

Quit whining over those Walls of Names you put up after wars. If all the women and kids who get killed in your wars had walls, there wouldn't be room for sidewalks. Put up our walls, and give us the pensions and medals for our dead, and then maybe we'll feel sorry for you. Or how about just not killing us and each other in the first place. Would that be too much for your little pea brains?

"Testicle" doesn't mean tough -- it means soft, vulnerable, and liable to draw up and hide any time you get scared or just cold. You people have internal glands on the outsides of your bodies -- some design flaw. You're short a whole lot of genes -- XY is just XX with a leg missing. We're not here for you, you're here for us. Deal with it.

You invented War, Slavery, the Inquisition, Rape, Nazis, the Bomb and the Nuclear Family. You owe us apologies, protection, and a hell of a lot of back pay. Live with it. And try to catch up.

You should be eternally grateful we even deign to breathe the same air with you, let alone let you have sex with us. Any dog acts the way you people do, we'd put down as suffering from hydrophobia.

Be so fucking grateful we don't pick you up by the heels when you're born, and drop you out the window.

And if you're a decent guy and you aren't any of the above -- be so fucking grateful that you've bought a clue, and the women in your life won't end up not being the women in your life. Thank your gods every time you see a woman, that you are not like those other guys.

And if you don't like the bad rep those guys are giving you, then don't whine to us about it, go kick those guys into shape.

They're YOUR people.

>^..^<

www.stinz.com

2004-07-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

From: The Jewish Comics Discussion List.

Hokay.

All calm down now.

Went out fishing, swells were too high to catch anything, but wet up to my butt (wading is fun!), and got to meet the neighbor dog Rocko's puppy (1/2 lab, 1/2 boxer, too cute). Taught him REAL fast he doesn't get to play with fishing equipment or hooks.

Had a cigarette, too (ONLY for sedative purposes, and very occasionally, and not the grocery-store garbage, thank you). Quite serene.

So...

Got myself into the whole numbers/who's dead/definitions crap that goes on on these lists.

Not good. Not gonna do it. Uh-uh. Sorry if I started any of it.

Lemme 'splain to the non-Murkins out there what it's like in this country right now. Murkins are just madder than hell. Those of us who saw it coming last year at the protest marches are just foaming at the mouth. Those of us who, like moderate Republicans and military wives, finally see they're getting screwed, are coming unglued.

Do you think we LIKE being painted with the brush of prisoner abuse, civilian murder by airstrike, putting in puppet governments, and whatever else crap our government is up to? I feel like a decent German in 1936. Pulling my hair out over my idiot government. I am SOOOOO sorry for this. SOOOOO many apologies.

Yup. I'm not the Jews. I'm the Germans. But this time...

I'VE got the internet. And email. And radio, and television, and video cameras, and film directors like Michael Moore who don't care what they look like (I'm counting the days until he's arrested under the Patriot Act).

Nope. I'M not going to go through crap wars for years and finally, exhausted, put all the pieces together at the end, and out of pure grief and anger and nightmares and the need to shoot SOMEBODY put a bullet between my eyes.

We have people in this country who think it's FUN and RIGHT and a big giggle to abuse prisoners, or drag a black man behind a truck until his head comes off, or tie a gay man to a fence and beat him to death. When they do it, they think it's GOOD.

Right now, over and over, Americans are saying -- and I quote: "Those poor kids in the prison abuse case were just following orders." Just Following Orders. It's being used as an excuse by parents and relatives of soldiers. And Supporting The Troops means you have to support the damn war. And our soldiers were Stabbed In The Back in Vietnam.

But does America know German history? Are you kidding? If you try to bring it up as anything but some Hogan's Hero's re-run, you're sneered at. I just had a newspaper editor laughingly refer to me as The Woman Who Writes About Nazis. THAT stopped when I started signing my emails to him as Donna (The Woman Who Writes About Nazis) Barr. You're not allowed to know, or study, or understand. The party line is that the Germans were just peculiarly evil, and odd, and How Could That Happen? That's the line you follow, and that's all there is to it. This is THE most important history for Americans to know right now, and it is suppressed at every turn. All of a sudden, poof, abracadabra, the Nazis (who are viewed as some kind of alien aberration, born with their boots on) turned up, and killed all the Jews and attacked the world. And Hitler -- my God, the man is worshiped as an evil God. Instead of just another monkey who pooped in his diapers and shaved every morning and liked strudel, lasagna and dogs (and dogs liked him, but dogs, as nice as they are, are flunkies). In other words, somebody we can't look out for or whose methods we can understand, because he's almost a kind of supernatural being. He's Satan. He's EVIL. Nothing past that surface. We can't understand, so we won't -- and we'll be completely unprepared when the same methods surface, as they are doing now.

I live in this country. This is what's going on. And I'm pissed (and I don't mean drunk -- I mean I resent the hell out of it).

The neo-cons need fighting every step of the way, and if my knowledge of what went on in Germany can help me in that fight, then I'm using it. The neo-cons won't quit, and that's why we can't, either. I'm part of the hugest empire ever was, and no way do you want us Decent Germans letting the beast get out of hand THIS time. None of you will be safe. Ever.

So par'm me if I'm not going to get involved in the numbers game. I don't plan to end up BEING part of the numbers, this time.

Oh my God. The neighbor just backed his truck down the road, done up for a Fun Days Float. You never saw anything so Queer Eye in your life.

Donna Barr

>^..^<

2004-07-07T09:22:00.000-07:00

Burning Questions.

I am going to hell for that pun.

Oh, boy. More Holocaust Discussions. How Delightful. I'm * -- my academic friend is @

@"How is it worse than what has been done to blacks, indians
and women?" is a very hard question, to which I don't have an answer, really(and indeed, it gets one into the 'your lot suffered more/less than my lot' territory which is stupid and childish, as well as very unpleasant...).

*I totally agree. So the people doing (I HATE THIS WORD!) Holocaust literature should stop it! It's stomach-turning. Dead is dead is dead. 100 million people died in that war, most of 'em women and kids. They always do. Where are our walls of names and medals and pensions? I mean, really. We're starting to say STOP THIS STUPID CRAP, YOU FRICKING TESTICLES, before we take a ball bat to You (RY, of course -- rhetorical you).

*This hanging on the results and not on how it happened is going to get all kinds of people, Jews included, killed again.

*What good does it do to remember the results, if the process isn't remembered? In America, we're sneered at if we write about what went on with the Germans. No doubt the corporations would be perfectly pleased if we DIDN't know about stolen elections, security acts, and faked evidence for attacks, among others. GEE, I wonder why?

@I think that one might say that the genocide of the Jews combined three things - a purposeful destruction of Jewishness as well as people (which is different in intention from, say, sending native americans to a reservation - though may have mucvh the sme ends); the lack of material benefit to the germans (e.g. colonilism had a financial motive: the genocide of European Jews didn't); the intended completeness of it all.

*Take a look at it. It's step by stupid step. It's the logical end of corporate thinking. 100% dead means efficient dead.

*You want to hear something that will make you gag? The gas was introduced because it was -- now get this -- more "HUMANE." The ovens were "EFFICIENT" and "CLEAN."

*And don't make the mistake thinking this was all the same person. This is theory + technology + war + too few people with too big a job. A toxic brew.

*They panicked like stupid boys at Wannsee -- "What are we going to do with all these people? We can't feed them! We can't do anything with them! What if they DON't die slowly? AGGGHHH!!!!"

*Disgusting ejaculation thinking (as opposed to pregnancy thinking) if there ever was.

@And there is something about gas chambers and ovens that is differnt from even blankets with diseases in them (that the British gave out to the native americans - 'invisible bullets').

*Yes. It's called assembly-line technology. If you haven't got masses and masses of guards to do the work, you use the technology. Ask a chicken what happens when you get caught in THAT little horror show. And let's go out and ask the dead First Nation and her baby in the trench lightly covered with snow how happy she is her death wasn't by mechanical means.

*Please never leave desperation, stupidity and idiocy out of the equation. And fear -- boy, if bigotry ain't scaredy-cat, I'll eat my shorts. And exhaustion. Spielberg got some of it right, showing the SS commander so full of irritability, confusion, resentment at being stuck with this stupid job. "I didn't sign up for THIS! I'm supposed to be a soldier!" And guess -- oh, just GUESS -- who the lower orders took it all out on.

*Dopes. When are we going to recognize the three rules of fiction, history and science:

*1. If it's funny (also stupid, weird, insane, oddbox, totally incredible) it's right.

2. If it's physically possible, it happened.

3. If it didn't happen, it should have.

*I've repeated these rules to major writers, historians and scientists and they've agreed. Laughing and a little shocked, but they've agreed.

@But maybe not. I've written two books about it and still don;t know. I think about this a lot, but have no real answer (but yes, I agree with your/Cesaire's empathy thing.).

*See "Human Stupidity" up there. We are not very bright, most of the time. And you've only studied the camps and things specific to them. You'd better study the whole society, to put all the little pieces in. Oh, and let's not leave the whole history out. The Americans invented the concentration camp and eugenics based on race (wonder why?). OOOH, there was a juicy idea or two jes' spilin' for somebody to come along and improve on.

@(So, look, when I visitied Auschwitz last year, the prison camp was, well, people are shit to each other all over, I've seen terrible medieval prisons in the UK where e.g. 100s of scots were locked up to die.

*Did you see any Scots actually mourning their dead people? Unable to eat their cream bisquits and tea?

@At Auschwiz-Birkenau, well, it was differnt. On the one hand, in the small village of Birkenau next to the camp, there were Polish kids on tricycles, a house painted pink and called 'flamingo', and life went on. A place is just a place. But then when you wander about, it is, well, differnt. A place isn;t just a place. I asked my guide what he felt and he said (I love this) - 'I grew up here. When I was young I chased rabbits around the camp'. So I just don't know - it's like a mythic place and it isn't. The chambers are just ruined concrete (like just across the road over there) and they aren't. But this very doubleness is a bit troubling...).

*For him it was Troy. Do YOU care about Helen or Paris or Ulysses? They weren't your relatives, you didn't know them. If it happens before you're born, and they're not your relatives -- you have other things you have to do.

*That's how people are. Life is too short.

*Do you CARE that the Makah up here couldn't speak their own language in schools, and were punished for it? Or have you ever heard of them?

*Do you REALLY care like for your own folks? We can't -- we can only keep track of so much of our own herd. The brain is full of shopping, and eating, and cleaning dirty baby butts. Most people have very full hard drives.

@It wasn't that efficient until towards the end, actaully (when they had had years to practice and improve). And involved lots of differnt people with differnt motives, too.

*See? It happened a bit at a time, and only when everybody was at the front and being bombed could the process really start. Nobody asks about stinky factories because factories ALWAYS stink. And we just got this letter from the front that Uncle Hans is missing... or Aunt Trude got smashed in a bombing raid.

*The governments love war. They can do whatever they like while people are reeling. It's just gross.

@Hitler et al too k advantage of the war to do what he wanted, in an especially brutal way.

*Hitler's generation had been through a particularly brutal trench war. Another problem with wars is they MAKE people even more brutal. Would Hitler have done what he did if he hadn't been a trench runner? Crawling through muck and slime and dead bodies rotting under his face when he had to throw himself down when shrapnel went over, weeping bloody tears, blinded with mustard gas at the end of the war. You don't think people get fucked up by that? Without therapy? Without exceptional brains? Or spirit? And that sure as hell was another colonial war. God, I get so pissed off at humans sometimes.

*What we learn from Hitler:

*Do NOT torment your children -- that crap gets passed on. To somebody. And do NOT send your young men off to horrible attritive wars. They come back terrified, screwed up, and spoiling to get somebody. Look at the Iraqi army -- 8 years against Iran. You don't think those people were brutal at the end of that? Please.

@Germans aren't/weren't cats but some creature that doesn't like other animals (hmmm... don't know).

*Total malarkey. Do you KNOW what the Nazis had to do to get the Germans to knuckle under and finally go to war? Germany HAD no Resistance -- the Nazis had everybody on the list, and they stuffed all the trouble makers into camps before anything got started. Dachau was originally built for Germans, did you KNOW that? (There's a family rumor among us that the older generation was in the camps -- and the younger generation was the guards -- but that may just be true for Germany in general). The German unions and teachers and folk in the street constantly argued and fought back and struggled -- and the Nazis kept coming back, kept coming back, kept coming back. They never quit. They terrorized here. Bribed there. Lied all over the place. Poke, press, pinch, crumble, disappeared, burnt, replaced with the more compliant or the true believers and converts, shot, "died while trying to escape." Like rats, the Nazis. Nibble, nibble, nibble. Until the carcass was clean.

*Hm. Maybe the Jews were the mice -- and the Nazis were rats. Rats will always kill mice. It's like a little war between them.

*Ah! Spiegelman only got it wrong by one letter! We got it! Not cats -- RATS.

*German society was horses -- and they looked down and found themselves hobbled by the damn rats and under threat of being eaten alive from the feet up.

*I'm tellin' ya -- think neo-cons. This is why we have to keep fighting, fighting, fighting. These people never quit. They think they're right. They think they're righteous. They think God Is ON Their Side. Nibble nibble nibble.

*Feel the hobbles yet?

@The aim was to create a homogenous volk (facists are
conservative revolutionaries: i.e. 'lets go back to the old days, but we need to do it violently....').

*What old days? The Germans hadn't been a single "Volk" most of their history. It's hard to do that with the Germans. They are all a bunch of very different tribes. They don't even speak the same language. Hochdeutsch is just Oxford English.

@Yes, the time taken for these things to be worked out is long: UK STILL in post WW2 mode, really. (No Vietnam to change the national consciousness)...

*The bible got it right. Four generations. That's how long it takes.

@"It just takes a long time to get a war out of the living room.": yes. And out of the bloodstream, the stories one tells, the way that e.g. my mum keeps jars that are (in fact) empty (rationing etc etc). (the urban geography all round here is based on what got bombed, in fact - WW2 determined the shape of our garden, for example).

*Hell, I never realized why I hoard food. I had no idea we were poor, and sometimes the only decent food we had was what we ran around in the woods eating. And WE weren't starving. But I cannot be caught without food. Makes me twitch. Imagine what the depression or rationing people went through.

@Yes, "what happened in Germany" can happen anywhere, as it is a question of manipulating 'who we think we are' and who the others are (e.g. the Abu Grab torture: this could not have happened unless there had been a living and strong tradition of US racism/anti-arabism -- treating them as less than human).

*Thank you. That strain is there. No decent German would have done that to a Jew. No decent American would have done that to an Arab.

*How's it feel to be painted with the same brush, America? How's it feel to protest you're not like that, that you're a -- ahem -- "Good German?" Not like the Germans didn't warn us until they got numb. But were we listening? NOOOOOOO. We knew better. We're America! We always know better.

@American ignorance is really quite scary (why are there so few maps in the US media???).

*Because, nice little British boy, there are no other countries but America! The sun never sets...

@British are in a way worse: we know, but do it anyway... oh dear.

*The British so badly want to either BE the Romans, or be UNDER the Romans. Hi -- I'm a Roman. Nice to meet you.

@Holocaust a religous term in part an attempt to recoup the loss, maybe? Religion and genocide a distressingly potent mix...

*In so many cases, they're the same thing. Religion is what WE belive, and if You (RY) don't, You're dead. In so many ways.

@PS sorry if above sounds a bit anti-US: not meant to be, I love the USA, honestly, so many good things (west wing, dylan, white stripes etc etc but also democracy and so on): BUT US is the world-empire, so does rather set the agenda.

*Excuse me? Roberta Gregory and I once horrified and delighted a Swiss (now German) friend and colleague -- we sat watching our president on the news, snarling at him, calling him a liar, doing everything but throw noodles at the screen (and if it had been our tv, we would have!).

*Oh, God. I am an American. I yell at my leaders. I'm pissed at my country because it's mis-behaving. I don't want anybody to think I act like those people. I want my country to be GOOD. I give a fuck.

*I am NOT patriotic! I'm NOT! No WAY!

*So why the hell do I keep voting, after I've sworn I'd never do it again, grumbling and grousing all the way to the polling stations?

*Mumble mumble grumble..

2004-07-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

More Academe

Oh, like I can resist putting more email blatter up here. Waste not, want not.

Me and the academic friends (Caution! Literary arguments! Not for dogs, small children, or police officers under a certain age!).

AF:
I'll happily send you a copy of the paper - and will respond more to your comments re: criticism (which are clearly right - but people who write about writing properly respond to the whole text - and whole texts DO say things and are not always excused by e.g. irony)

Me: This is why so many reviewers and school-teachers fall flat on their faces reviewing HUCKLEBERRY FINN. They don't get the point.

AF: and re: extermination of European Jews (lots right in what you say, and indeed Aime Cesaire said same thing in
Discourse on Colonialism in 1951 -AND current historical research also has been developing this line too - BUT (normal human horror not withstanding) there's something about Auschwitz-Birkenau, even now, which is, ho hum, different and awful.

Me: How? How is it worse than what has been done to blacks, indians and women?

It was corporately and mechanically comparitively efficient, but it was the result of short-sightedness and just the sort of administrative screw-ups, viciousness and general scalding idiocy that only the military is capable of when nobody's watching it.

And what people do not GET today is that, regardless of whether or anybody knew this thing was happening, most people didn't care. Non-Jews really did not so much hate or like or anything toward Jews, as a general rule. Jews were not first and foremost in their minds. They could no more have cared, than the average (not all) Americans cared about the treatment of the First Nations. People really only care about their own tribe. It was the horrid talent of the Nazis that they figured out how to split the Jews away, so a people who had so much become a part of German society, could be viewed again, as they had been before, as "The Other." The Germans have never really gotten over the 30-years' war, and "The Other" scares them into the willies.

And most people were so damn busy with depressions, street violence, getting drafted and being bombed, that they didn't pay a lot of attention to what was happening to their neighbors. Remember, NS papers went out after Crystalnacht saying that it had been a mistake because the reaction of the average German was to be appalled by it. Specifically, the average German would have to be so terrorized that he or she would not even dare raise a finger against anything, regardless of personal opinion.

People were not sitting home reading newspapers and listening to the radio on nice safe weekends. All hell was breaking loose, little by little at first, and then just snowballing.

And spiegelman got it wrong -- Germans aren't cats. They're horses. And the Jews didn't so much get hunted as they got stampeded over the top of, crushed, herded, obliterated in a rising panic. Germans never knew when their own loopholes in the fences for safety would open or close. They didn't know whom to talk to. Who was reliable. Who was dangerous. Who would be dangerous because of fear. Or bribery. Or because of the day's weakness. By 1945, they were numb, crazy and just wanted things to be quiet. Like the Israelis, they only wanted very quiet movies and quiet entertainments. The Germans didn't want to talk about anything. Any more than the victims. Nobody wanted to deal with it; they were just too scarred.

The whole recognition of what happened really began to be examined in the 1970's -- but it takes 20-30 years for a generation to even be able to look at what they've been through without twitching.

My husband sat and watched fireworks for the second time since Vietnam last night. He's doing pretty well -- but the noise still gets to him.

It just takes a long time to get a war out of the living room.

And it's weird, but in America, it's almost forbidden to think of what happened in Germany as anything but something that could happen to the Germans. We are jeered at if we write about this and how it happened.

When what is happening here began to happen, my German friends were frantically emailing me. Some of the quotes: "Are you stupid? Are you crazy? Do you learn nothing from what happened to us?" When I tried to impress on them the extent of American ignorance of the period -- other than as a military fashion parade -- you could almost here them gasp squeak and
sputter. They could not believe it had been buried so well.

AK: Term Holocaust started to be used 1960s, and the religious connotation was taken as especailly important... yes this is a very dodgy term

Me: It just makes me twitch... And how does religiousity have anything to do with it? So much more had to do with the forces of capitalism, economies of scale, technological ability, momentum

AK: (Romany 'the
devouring' a more appropiate one?).

Me: I dunno. Kinda describes it, tho', no? The mouse gets gulped by the grazing horse...which has decided to eat everything, like a plague.

2004-07-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

Maybe I Should Get Hired To Review...

I wrote this in answer to the following academic silliness. And check the spelling.... I'm writing about Mormons now? News to me.

"Thanks!

I'd love a copy.

Oh, and people who write about writing should always realize --

characters can lie, or be confused, or get the facts wrong, or refuse to accept a situation. A lot of reviewers, editors, readers and yes, scholars, make the mistake of thinking that what comes out of the characters mouths necessarily reflects an entire worldview. It may be irony. It may be humor. It may be sarcasm. Look and learn.

Check out "Headaches," the latest Desert Peach. Or "Miki." (Speaking of Maus). Or even "Tongue."

My personal attitude toward The Jewish Tragedy? That it is a perfectly normal development in a system of Viking Economics. In a colonial society, as Western Europe, sooner or later, those actions one has pushed upon others will come back to haunt. White Europeans colonized, conquered, enslaved, and committed genocide all across the globe for hundreds of years. The Germans have a habit of pushing philosophies and actions to their logical extremes. Their question was: If you can enslave Indians, or conquer East Indians, or colonize Indonesians or murder Australians en masse, because they were not white -- why could you not do that to white people? This is why an entire continent of white people -- the Europeans -- now realize that conquest, colonization, slavery and genocide are no fun -- IF THEY'RE DONE TO YOU. They needed to bleed to learn empathy. Horribly enough, the reason the Jewish Tragedy did not gain more notice at the time was that, in comparison to the overall war, it was quite small. Estimates are that 100 million people died in World War Two. Six million just -- hideously enough -- fell through the cracks. I am always horrified by this, but it happened, and there's nothing we can do to deny it.

And I don't use the word "Holocaust." It refers to burnt offerings. This is just too grotesque a use of the word. How can anybody use it in that reference? Who used it in the first place, and why were we not all appalled?

By the way, I'm part Rom and Jewish myself... need I say more?

Donna Barr

-----Original Message-----
From: S B [mailto:safran-can@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, July 05, 2004 5:50 PM
To: barr@stinz.com
Subject: Desert Peach discussed in an academic paper

Dear Donna,

As you probably already know, comix scholarship is
still a relatively new area of study. This is despite
the fact that the format is about 70 years old.

There are a variety of ways that comics-type work is
discussed in published academic papers. Sometimes,
comics with a theme in common are discussed. Sometimes
a specific issue of a comic series is analyzed. And,
sometimes, a graphic novel is the subject of the
paper.

Perhaps the most analyzed graphic novel in academe, in
the history of comics, is Art Spiegelman's _Maus_. It
has been discussed in art journals, history journals,
langauge journals, Judaica journals and elsewhere.

It is within this context of sparse academic
scholarship about comics that I happily announce that
_Desert Peach_ was discussed in an academic paper that
was published in 2002, in which it is compared and
contrasted with Alan Moore's _Miracleman_.

The citation for the paper is as follows :

Eaglestone, Robert. Madness or Modernity? : The
Holocaust in Two Anglo-American Comics. _Rethinking
History_ v.6(3) (2002) : 319-330.

If you e-mail Robert, he'll probably be willing to
send you a copy. If not, please let me know and I can
send you a copy of mine. His e-mail address is :
r.eaglestone@rhbnc.ac.uk

Below, I'm excerpting from the conclusion :

*****

The liberal _Deseret Peach_ can neither explain nor
face the Holocaust, and can only write about it and
draw it as madness - not within human ken. Implicitly,
her liberal paradigm is unable to come to terms with
the events.

*****

Peace,

Steven M. Bergson

Jews in Comics
http://www.geocities.com/safran-can/JWISHC.HTM

2004-06-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

Soldiers and Responsibilty.

Recently, American citizens have been claiming that the soldiers involved in the prison abuse were "poor kids who just following orders."

Any soldier in a democracy is obligated, by national and international law, to question, protest and if at all possible, refuse orders which he or she knows to be illegal. Any failure to do so on the part of the soldier is grounds for legal action in the form of a court martial.

Soldiers are not children. In a democracy, they are responsible adults. Regardless of the consequences, they must take responsibility for all their actions. They do not cease to be citizens because they are temporarily in the service of the citizenry. They may not blame their officers, and their officers may not blame their superiors. No one may blame the commander in chief, regardless of his position on the world stage, or anything he might have said. The ultimate Commander In Chief -- the citizenry and its laws -- will not accept such excuses, either morally or legally.

The World War Two generation does not need to be reminded why "just following orders" is no longer accepted as a valid legal argument. The World War Two generation should be reminding their children and grandchildren of the reasons.

Soldiers are obligated and should be fully trained to know the international law concerning all their actions, including the proper, humane and legal treatment of all prisoners. The complete soldier should and would be ashamed to use the excuse of being a child, or of "just following orders."

Would you want to live in a country where it was any other way?

Donna Barr
US Army, 1970-1973
Clallam Bay, WA

2004-06-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

The Goon Show

Re: Will Thomas: A Powerful Political Commentary: With Trembling Fingers.

"Oh, please.

I'm not surpised by any of it. This is where Viking Economics has been heading for at least 900 years. World War Two was just the last fart of European Conquest and Colonization (except the Germans did it to white people, and that is just a BIG no no -- but it took that to get Europe to at least admit that Colonization was wrong, and no damn fun when it's done to YOU. Lord help us when the Murkins finally learn that lesson....).

America is based first to last on ripping off territory, stealing resources, wiping out the locals, cramming governments down people's throats, forced religious conversion, destructions of local cultures and languages, plantations of cheap labor (and if we can't get it here, we'll get it in China -- our system doesn't work without it). Hell, we INVENTED concentration camps and eugenics.

Why is anybody surprised when it comes in one more disguise?

Any American loves his libery -- he just hates his neighbors'. Why do you think we make our children recite religious loyalty oaths in school?

Sooner or later, any charade gets exposed. Our little pretend freedom dance has gone on a long time -- and it took the Internet to lay it all wide open for everybody to see.

Otherwise, this would be just another American Fight For Freedom and Democracy.

You know it would. Nobody would know. Nobody would care.

We have our Way of Life, don't we?

Doing my little "I told you so" Cassandra dance again...

(Why am I so gleeful? I hate being right on this point, don't I? Why am I so happy being so RIGHT? Oh, fuck. I AM an American. Self-righteous first to last. AGGGGHHH!!!! Runs screaming from room. Not a sausage).

Donna Barr
Clallam Bay, WA

(There's a reason I moved up here. Not just the beach. 2005 or 2007 are going to be VERY VERY bad. The Makah tribe is withdrawing back into itself, in preparation for when the States go down the tubes. I have a bed for any friends who need to abscond).

(Oh shit.. this is the GOON SHOW. We're living in the Goon Show! Goon as in Thug. Show as in theatricals and propaganda and bullshit. Oh, my knees! My little knees!).

2004-06-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

They Started It -- Let's Finish It.

"Gay agenda," huh? "Protect Marriage," huh? Okay, if they want to start this fight, I'm coming out swinging.

Yes, the gays have an agenda and want "special rights" -- they want to raise their kids, have jobs, go to school, join the military -- without harrassment and bigotry. Damn straight they have an agenda. And if these are special rights, I'm glad I already got 'em.

So, since the bigots are counting on us to be nice and timid and mannerly, I'm taking advantage of the fact that I HAVE no manners:

I went to:

http://www.afa.net/contact.asp

And sent this:

"Any count reflects that the heterosexual nuclear family kills and abuses (sexually, emotionally and physically)more children by far than any other form of human bonding institution.

The heterosexual nuclear family is an invention of the industrial age, and destroyed the original and natural multi-leveled extended family in the interest of corporate profit. This construct used children as child laborers, and left children at home with one parent, who often did -- and still does -- succumb to stress and does violent harm to the child. With no older females to watch the action of a male parent, children are open to the abuses of an unsupervised parent, if that parent is unbalanced or immature.

The Christian Churches have been fooled into backing this pernicious and child-destructive institution.

Stop being used. Get rid of the heterosexual nuclear family. Return the human family to the normal, natural, child-protecting construct of the extended family."

Statistically, I dare anybody to argue with me on this one.

If they want to attack... we'll give 'em an attack.

>^..^<

2004-06-19T11:04:00.000-07:00

Rape Victim

25% of all woman in the coming generation in the United States can expect to be raped by the male population.

25% does not reflect attack by psychotics or maniacs. It reflects the fact that every woman is
born into a war-zone.

100% of women should be prepared to accept the following reality:

100% of the men who to try to rape a woman should look like this:

They shouldn’t have any eyes. That’s what their victims’ thumbs are for.

Their knees should be broken. A woman should learn to kick hard as she can right into this vulnerable joint.

Their faces should be smashed. After the knee-kick, when he bends over in agony, a woman should target the next kick for his mouth.

All their joints should be broken, starting with the feet up. A woman should think of the chickens she as cut apart, and work up his whole body, metatarsals, ankles, knees, hips, lower back, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulers. Not the neck -- she doesn’t want to kill him.

Their teeth should be all broken from their mouths.

They shouldn’t have any ears. A woman should take them firmly in her fingers, and rip them off the sides of his head.

They shouldn’t have any noses. All women should carry a small clasp knife, and have it in their hands whenever they must move in the dark, or alone.

Their tongues should be cut out.

Their scalps should be ripped off.

Their genitalia should be torn from their roots.

Then they can be left, helpless to ever harm any woman, ever again.

Don't ever hesitate. For every part you don't rip off, break or crush, another woman, another girl, with get thrown down and penetrated like a rotten melon. Swallow your nausea, remember your fellows, do your duty.

The crippled, mutilated, broken bubbling wheezing barely human hulk that crawls through life after healing, whimpering for pity, whimpering helplessly for revenge, just plain whimpering --

This is what a man should look like who tried to rape a woman.

2004-06-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

Masters of the Universe

"It's just a joke," the menfolk say.
"Ladies, don't get mad at me."

It’s a man’s right -- a man’s duty -- to define women,
to put us in our place, tell us who we really are.

How else would we know?

"You're a lady if you're gentle, and good, and quiet," they say.
"If you open your mouth, you're just a woman."
They say, "Be nice, be convenient,
do nothing that will make us notice you,
if what we see isn't pretty."

"Bitch" is what they call you
if you get in their way.

Men are upset by ladies who don't act like ladies.
It's understandable --
If I had part of my internal anatomy
hanging outside my body
in a thin, vulnerable, soft, crushable sack of skin,
I'd be paranoid and defensive, too.
I'd want an apology for EVERYTHING,
not just for airplanes gone wrong.
I'd be that worried about who I am.

Who do they think they are?

All men are equal, they say.
Their dignity is natural, they say.
Women have to earn dignity, they say.
Women have to earn human status.

Debate: Do women have souls?

They brand us with all their weakness.
They are gossipy, and they back-bite --
so we talk too much.
They cringe away from taking a moral stand --
so we are cowardly.
They turn white, or grey, and even faint,
at the sight of blood --
so we, who calmly see more human blood in a month
than most of them will see in a lifetime,
are afraid of blood.

It doesn't matter that we throw them down
wet and bleeding and screaming,
an expelled and chopped-off product of our flesh,
in the flood of blood we live with all our lives.
We aren't human, we have no souls.

We let them breathe.
We let them walk.
We let them be everything,
boy and man and old man.
We let them have existence on this planet
as something more than a little slimey
drop
of testicle-snot.

Without us, the only thing they'd be able to do is ooze.
It must be hard, to know you're a parasitic breeder
with a broken chromosome.

It must be why they have wars.

If they can’t get mutual mass death
to build themselves an illustion of meaning,
they’ll inject profundity into a ball game.
Basketball is the game of the gods,
if that’s all they can get.
They’ve been known to rip out each other’s bleeding hearts
over the outcome of a ring-toss game.

And because we don’t get
how important these games must be,
they say we’re under them,
less than them,
weaker of comprehension.

Even black men do this to women.
You'd think they'd know better.
When it comes to treating women like shit,
all men are equal.

"Don't be bitter," they say.

Our history is the most bitter of histories.
To every nation and every place,
we have been the Ultimate Enemy.
The Ultimate Prisoner.
The worthless vessel.
The lowest, most polluted scum.
Our blood was too filthy to spill.
But not to be burnt.

We have no honor.
Our honor has been the honor
of the place of the penis.
"Honor" to a woman has meant whether or not
she has ever had a penis in her.
Or whose penis.
Or how many penises.
A cigar is always a cigar.

Can you imagine anything
more depraved or grotesque
as a sign of honor?
Of purity?
Of worth?
What kind of low besmirched mind
could have discovered this
as a means of defining
the worth of a human being?

And they think they're better than us?

Women have been kept,
controlled,
offered only submission or starvation --
repressed,
trapped,
enslaved,
burnt,
beheaded,
hanged
for centuries.
For millenia.

Thousands of years.

If it's funny, or petty, or to be forgotten,
then the Holocaust is funny.
If it's to be forgiven, or buried,
or if we need to get on with our lives,
then the Middle Passage needs to be buried.
Six million Jews?
Three and a half million of them female.
30 million blacks?
16 million of them the mothers of the race.
How many more burned in the witchtrials?
How many burning under the phosphorous bombers?
How many beaten because they were convenient to a temper --
beaten legally, with a stick no thicker than a thumb?
How many brutalized for Superbowl Sunday?

God help them --
if we ever ask for our reparations.
They can bow down and groan
at the mere thought of the pay-back --
if we ever get our 40 acres and a mule.

Screw that "if."

I want my beast of burden.

I've fucking got the dirt.

2004-06-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

I’m your Candidate.

I mean, I’m YOUR Candidate.

I know you’ll vote for me -- you always have.

It doesn’t matter which party you’re registered to, or which one you raid.

Vote early and often -- all the votes come to me.

No one can tell you, if you’re a married woman, that a vote for a Democrat will cancel your Republican husband’s vote. I’m not sexist. After all, I’ll get both your votes.

I’m not racist either. I make a fool of everybody, without prejudice or preference.

Once you pulled a lever.

Now you punch a card.

Soon you’ll web your vote.

It’s always been the Information Age for me.

You could sign any name to the voter roles, under any registration, in any district. Close your eyes, pick a spot. Drive around ‘till you come to a polling station. Walk past the schoolchildren -- pretend to be some other voter. Live a little! Ultimately, it all comes to me.

I’ve always been the Candidate of Choice. I’m the Dark and the Stalking Horse, and the Lame Duck. The whole zoo is in me. I’m on the hustings, and on the soapbox, and on the take. No one can buy me, because I’m already sold.

I’m not sorry for you, because it’s your own fault.

All dressed up, and no one to vote for.

Vote for me.
Vote for me.
Vote for me.

2004-06-19T10:51:00.000-07:00

Oh fer gods' sake.

Where is my brain?

Of COURSE when Bush keeps harping on there being a connection between Al Quaeda and Saddam Hussein -- it's TRUE.

The connection is the United States!

We were best buds and pards with BOTH of 'em. They couldn't have been suppressing and abusing their people without our support and pat on the back. We were all linked together at the elbows like a bunch of drunken Texas frat boys.

Par'm me while I go bat my head against a wall.

2004-06-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

It's Our Turn.

The original email letter:

"Somebody on this my lists started arguing about whether or not Paul Kidd is being prosecuted by the neo-cons or the Feminists, or their Uncle George in Ottawa.

This is not the point.

The point is that the comic book and fringe fandom groups have been prosecuted without any reaction from the rest of the society.

Nobody cares, because in the '50's the original artists, writers and companies in the comics industry caved in to HUAC (this is the same gang that accused the Germans of not standing up to the Nazis, but let's not go there, the hypocrisy stinks too high).

Because of their actions -- or inaction, our writers and artists can have their books banned, their books burned, their art seized, and they can be put under house arrest for what they draw. Our shops are raided, our retailers put out of business because courts have decided that "everybody knows comics are for kids." The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is fighting our battles, but they have to do it alone, with nobody's support but ours.

I don't have all the details, but I'll be getting them: Paul Kidd (the writer of the game LACE AND STEEL, which I illustrated) is an Australian. His wife photographed their kids in the bath. the developer turned them in. (And again, I need to get details): when Paul attempted to explain drawings seized in his home, clarifying their details as being part of drawings done in a fandom, the prosecutor said that fandom as a group did not exist, that it was a lie.

Paul Kidd is what we used to call a Furry Artists. These people have, in the past, driven me out of my head. I mostly don't think much of their art. So what? My opinion of what they do, or my personal likes or dislikes, is not important. Just because Paul Kidd is part of this fandom is not an excuse to use what he puts on paper as evidence to convict him for child abuse, regardless of content, irregardless of how the content is intended or interpreted.

We should understand that the knee-jerk reaction to anything that looks like child abuse comes from years of that actual abuse. The industrial revolution tore the extended family apart, and children were left in the hands of the two parents alone. This is not a healthy situation for primates; no other family members are available to pull children away from stressed or unstable parents. Parents who are able to survive the extremely stressful and artificial structure of the two-parent nuclear family are to be commended for managing in a very bad situation (you know who you are, pat yourselves on the back). Too many of us bear the psychic scars of being raised in this artificial environment. Too many overburdened and un-witnessed parents succumb to the stress, and children die, children are raped. The nuclear family as created by corporate labor requirements is a notorious child-killer.

The women's movements are reacting to centuries of abuse of women and children, and the original perpetrators of the economic structures are not taking the rap -- instead, their failure is being paid for by the rest of us. As usual.

Now the neo-cons are using the backlash against child abuse to sew up their control of art and literature, and by this means, of freedom of speech and thought. They lay out their plans on their websites, for all to see (like Mein Kampf, these things are almost unreadable, and comparitively few read them, and I don't blame You).

Comic book artists and their ilk are seen as a fringe of society, and easily prosecuted. All over the world, governments are attacking them, using the excuse that they are protecting children, because they know that no one will protest the arrest and persecution of this art form.

All writers and artists need to pay attention to what is happening to our industry, and understand its history. We may be seen as a joke in the literary and artistic world -- but what is happening to us is not a joke. The neo-cons around the world know an opening for the thin edge of the wedge. They are actually taking us seriously, as artists and writers to be controlled. I guess we should call this a kind of compliment.

During WWII, a poorly-trained group of German spies, dropped off on the American coast, was turned in by one of them who didn't want to be part of the mission. This man was an American citizen, but by a goofy twist of events I'd be ashamed to use for a Desert Peach plot, he found himself spying on the country of his birth. He expected to be rewarded for blowing his less-than-eager group's cover, but instead, because Pearl Harbor had just happened, and his home (the American) government wanted an example of how it handled terrorists and spies, he was hanged. His case is being used as the precedent for the holding of American citizens as prisoners in a war in which they are given no status as citizens or prisoners of war, and remain in a legal limbo without representation or even the rights of POW's. Precedents get into a system like toxoplasmosis, and explode decades later.

I am warning each and every artist and writer around the world that the cases of artists and writers in the comic book industry, and in many odd little fandoms, will be used as precedence in their own future prosecution, for whatever reason.

Fight these precedents NOW -- before you hear them used at your own trial. Don't let your colleagues go down the rat-hole because they're not part of your art, fandom, group, industry, or terminally cool circle-jerk. You're next. You people know what I write about -- you think I don't know patterns when I see them? "First they came for the trade-unions..."

I know I'm probably playing Cassandra, again...

But you do know I'm doing a lot of listening to the news and pointing at the radio and yelling, "I told you so! I told you so!" - ?

Don't give me the awful chance to do that about US.
>^..^<

2004-06-02T16:15:00.000-07:00

Ffter reading The Guardian Weekly 20-4-0604, page 13 Re abuse of prisoners.

"And I hate to tell everybody who hasn't been in, but this is the way MOST armies are.

I mean, come on -- hiearchical male society mostly made up of kids? It's frat-boys with Kevlar! And the right to torture the plebs.

What do the peoples of the world expect? This is the military -- and it's what you get if you build a world where you depend on soldiers. Those of you who haven't been in and you're all drooling over the cool costumes and ideas of "honor" and other fakey shit, get over it.

And those of you HAVE been in and you're passing off the military as being full of all these clean-cut upright dedicated darlings, SHAME ON YOU FOR FAKING EVERYBODY ELSE OUT!

You know damn well that in the military, sucking shooters off the bellies of ho's is an after-work indulgence, and Freestyle Peon Harrassment is a judged event.

And for those of you who start whimpering that they're PROTECTING us -- they're part of a system that wouldn't need them if it didn't make them.

They made a world where life is more dangerous than if we lived with grizzly bears -- and I damn well say they OWE me protection. They all want to be part of this big gaudy bloody football game they call wars, they can bloody well go get slammed by it, and when they discover that oh, dear, bullets HURT and if you're in somebody's country they WILL shoot at you and they
come back all oh feel sorry for me, I'm traumatized, then they can nurse their own idiot heads because they're the ones put the worms in them in the first place.

And most of the people who get killed in wars are women and kids. If anybody put in a wall for them, they'd have to dig up the entire walk in front of the reflecting pond, and they still wouldn't have enough room for all the names, even if they bothered to count. Oh, no, you can bet that the women and kids don't get included in the body counts -- they're just twats and pups in the eyes of the military, and if they die, so what? Seen any medals or parades for dead women and kids? Or pensions? My ass.

The grizzly bears and ice storms and deep water I'm willing to live with. The fucking human armies I'm NOT. That's fair.

And life IS fair. It's greedy stupid humans (I'm being nice, including the whole bunch, instead of the slightly less than half who is ACTUALLY responsible for the Inquisition and concentration camps) and the messes they come up with that's not fair.

And the whining! God, the WHINING!"

2004-05-23T10:49:00.000-07:00

"CHUPLIK."

Part of an announcement note for www.moderntales.com:

Free today -- PAID HOME. Just one of the panels of only one of the ca. 3000 pages of the sketchbooks Donna Barr did before she was ever published.*

In this episode, Jahnhalt shows up with snow-roses. And apologies. And cheeks and lips just glowing from the cold.

And uses the German word "scharf."

(This was added because another post list had been discussing some German porn spam that included the word "rattenscharf.")

*A lot of 'em full color, up to 2000 words on a page, and a lot of the dialogue in another language. Now THAT's a 24-hour comic (well, a 7-YEAR comic). And this doesn't count the thousands of pages she burned cuz she didn't think they were good enough.

The moral? Get the art out of the artists' hands before it's too late. Swap it, beg for it, even -- gasp! -- BUY it! before it disappears in anything from a flurry of moving to fung shei to mourning to cat pee to a bad fit of Chuplik).

I need to explain Chuplik:

It's a Mojave word, meaning "thrown away," and refers to the grave goods burned at a funeral. The Mojave, according to the book "Crazy Weather," responded to stress by throwing things away, getting the material goods out of their lives.

I've suffered from it all my life. I've thrown away books, things I loved, even people and animals. Cats have come this close to being put to sleep because I thought they couldn't stand a move. And oh, the regret. Chuplik was meant for when you were about to die. A Death Song of things. It was never meant to infect an entire life.

If I've ever driven you away, said I didn't have time, or just RUN -- I was probably Chuplik. If I've slammed a door in your face, or refused to help you, blame Chuplik. And believe me, I've regretted that, too.

There's a reason I'm Chuplik, but that's a family thang.

You don't wanna know.

Robert Crumb once told me I was weird. Well, Bobby, it comes from the family background. And I can match weird family with anybody.

Even if you're English.

>^..^<

2004-05-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

"YOU THINK TOO FAST."

I've had a horrible realization: I scare boss mares of little herds!

Every single time, a woman or a gay man who gets angry at me -- they think I'm going to take over their herd! And that's why the fight results. I've never been able to understand why they get so -- well -- fearfully angry. The kind of anger based in terror. I mean, it's not just minor screw-ups (we all make those, and I sure make my share). They take it as an opportunity to run me away from their herd, if they can, although that doesn't happen very often. They have fits, absolutely get their backs up. Over -- well, over nothing. I've finally sussed it. Call me stupid for taking so long.

They think I'm going to take their herd!

HOW can you tell people you don't want their herd -- you're perfectly happy to be the harmless rough rogue nag that wanders about from herd to herd and scratches rumps with everybody? Who shares grass and water when she finds it with whatever herd she happens to be grazing with? Gets a kick out of a little head-slamming and play-fighting? Snaps at the colts, but kicks any mountain lion that tries to take 'em (even romps a little with 'em if nobody's watching). Without making boss mares and stallions think you're running down their herd? How do you tell somebody you don't want something without making them think you are looking down your nose at it?

It's like trying to tell someone you aren't fooling around with their mate because -- well, you don't want their mate. You know what would happen. They'd get this pained look, and snap, "So what's WRONG with George? Suzy? Billy?" With the assumption that if there is anything wrong with their choice, there is something wrong with them for making it? And then you have to tell them that nothing's wrong with the boy, but you just don't want him. Oh, yeah, get yourself out of that little maelstrom.

And so often, that's just the problem. The herd is so small, and so limited in outlook, or so afraid of something -- words, contacts, expressions, ideas -- that you don't want it. It would never occur to you. It bores you, and you wander off to less constricted pastures. Off into Left Field, where you live.

I've picked up a new buddy up here in Clallam Bay -- Call her T. She has always had the same problems I have. She's been accused of ADD. She can't sit still. She can't stop talking. She can't stop bouncing ideas off the wall. And yesterday, at a Council meeting at the new Community Center in Sekiu, she and I and M. -- a local artist, and another rough rogue mare -- went nuts at a blackboard, laughing our fool heads off at an imaginary pontoon project that would solve the bridge problem up here. Yes, we came up with terms like "PosPonification." "Pontoon Meisters." Even "Kalakatoon." (Google "Kalakala" and see why that was so funny. But you probably hadda be there).

Were we hurting anybody? Were we threatening anybody? We were off on our own end of the hall, having fun in our own -- well, NOT quiet way -- and the local boss mare went a little peculiar at the subsequent meeting. Making constant comments about my talking too much, and little put-downs. But what did I want with her herd? It's just the local Town Council. Anybody can wander in and out of that. Why would anybody be afraid you'd take it away?

T. and I were in her car later, complaining about the whole problem of having other people tell us to shut up. We're usually not even talking to these people. We're entertaining ourselves. We're even trying to help out. You know what we get told?

"You think too fast."

Yup. They can't keep up with us, and WE're the problem. We have more RAM or bits and better hyperlinking, and WE're the obsolete machines.

I have another fast-brained friend who has been told, "You're so stupid! I can't understand anything you say!"

You know, lately, people have been doing things like developing a third set of teeth. Or wisdom teeth have been disappearing.

People are also developing more empathy. And they're thinking faster.

I had semi-antique wisdom teeth (good roots, bad crowns), but I think my brain is next generation. The kids they're calling ADD, or who make the connections too fast are just the way it's going to be.

Stop drugging us. Stop telling us to shut up. We may be the future.

And those of you with slower motherboards are just going to have to be darn grateful that the faster brain comes more empathy. We're NICER than the slow brains. Kinder. Gentler. More able to see the consequences of our actions. Our logic is complicated and inter-connected. You're not going to get it, and don't try. But do NOT be afraid of us.

We don't want your herd.

2004-05-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

See the date on this? This is the article I meant, when I said I'd put one up that was back when I was being polite.

"American Brave
11/9/01

On National Public Radio, a young Marine was talking confidently about how well he would be able to fulfill his combat mission in Afghanistan.

He was quite assured that he would be able to stand up to the requirements, not only of personal bravery and toughness, but of the need to accept “collateral damage,” if it was necessary to fulfill his mission. He had no doubt that he would have the steely courage of mind to kill civilians if it was expected of him. Including children, if by this immoral means he arrived at a moral goal.

The young Marine’s tone was very pure and upright and cavalier, and I realized where I’d heard it before.

I was listening to a young man speak about what would happen if his country were ever invaded. He was quite sure that, if the enemy were parachuting into town, he would kill his own children, to prevent their falling into enemy hands. When I said that he would first have to get through his wife to kill them, he brightly assured me that she would have already died, at his hands, in her sleep.

We will not go into the inconsistencies of this young man’s battle plan. Do I need to say that he is, of course, neither married nor a father? So these are all hypothetical mercy
killings, upon a hypothetical mate and imaginary offspring. He was still at that stage in a young man’s life when he thinks of his woman and his kids as his property, and cannot conceive of their existing without him. And believes that this proves his own sense of responsibility. We’ve seen where this leads when a man or a woman decides that it would be better for their babies to be shot or drowned.

I pointed out that his wife, if she followed the pattern of the millions of women who have survived invasions, would probably recover from the rape and brutality and continue her life with a great store of resilience and tough-mindedness. Her misery would be her own, and it would be up to her to decide whether to survive it or not. The children would be able to live in the rubble, if it came to that, and survive in the recovery of the economy. Of course, they could both succumb horribly, but it wasn’t up to their husband or father to cut short any chances they would have for a future, simply because he couldn’t bear the thought that they would be without him.

I could see that the ability of wife and children to exist without him was a new idea to my young friend. And the young Marine would no more be able to picture the reality of killing a child.

During World War Two, those soldiers of the Axis powers who were required to kill civilians, for one reason or another, often suffered psychological damage for their actions. An SS-man, under orders, shot a young Jewish girl, and became a manic-depressive for the rest of his life. In the end, the Third Reich even had to come up with more “humane” -- their word, not mine -- methods for carrying out their mission of wiping out their unwanted populations, because their individual soldiers could not be entrusted with the job, in the numbers required.

There were others who felt no guilt at all. They believed in their mission. They believed that they were committing immoral acts for the greater moral good. Regardless of how these acts might be viewed by us now, the perpetrators more often were convinced of their own decency, and of their own acceptance of a tough task, than merely indulging their brutality. Human beings really do want to be accepted by their societies as decent, upstanding, proper people. In the long run, those people who were convinced of the decency of their acts were much harder to convince, if at all, that those acts had been evil or misguided. The very misery they themselves had suffered during the conflict required them to continue to believe in the worth of their own sacrifices. They dug in the heels of their consciences, and refused to change their minds. As Confederate soldiers sang after the Civil War, "I won't be reconstructed, and I do not give a damn."

The young Marine who is convinced he can kill and not be affected by it may very well be right. If he believes in the righteousness of his campaign, he may very well be able to shoot that young girl because he believes she is carrying a grenade. He may be able to kill a woman because he believes she is harboring the enemy. His beliefs may lead him to all manner of heinous acts.

So how do you want that Marine to view those acts in the end? As though he were a moral, upright man, fulfilling the duty demanded of him by his place in his society? Or would you rather than he was revolted by what he had done, and betrayed that duty by refusing to accept the rightness of it, until it ate away at him like a hungry ghost, and he ended up a manic-depressive the rest of his life?

The Navajo, when they sent a young man out to war, magically changed him into a Warrior – a non-human, an unclean thing, a kind of killing robot, a murderous Mudman, a Golem. What this Thing did, it did for its people. When it returned from battle, it was not allowed back among its people until it had been cleansed, and magically transformed back into a human being.

Our people doesn't debrief our young soldiers. They do what they do in a single personality. When they get back, if they are still unclean, they have to wallow in their own perceived heart-filth, their own fault, and their own responsibility.

Sometimes it’s better to go mad."

2004-05-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

Boy, did the fricking universe just duck a bullet.

The internet connection was acting up, and the support line was busy, so obviously it was the server, and not my email program. And my computer stops me when I'm going to start naming names, so be very very happy that Aunt Mary Frankenstein got it into her motherboard not to let me come after the human race with a verbal shotgun.

And parents don't want their children reading this, because like the rest of America (and if you're not, well, lucky you, go ahead and brag about it) they're totally hung up on language and actually believe that somehow, like a magic spell, words will twist the minds of their helpless spawn. I am being cordial enough to appreciate they might be that stupid, and warning them ahead of time. Fucking nation of Harry Potters, that's what we are. We believe in the Voodoo of the Dictionary. What, some words are like a virus or something?

Shit, parents stick food in their spawn's mouth that contains growth hormones and livestock antibiotics and fricking the remainders of ROUNDUP, and they're talking to ME about what I may stick in their kids' ears or put before their kids' eyes? They can get back to me when they stop buying feed-lot beef, the hypocrites. They don't care about their damn kids. Kids just give them an excuse to be Behavior Nazis. Go ahead, mommy and daddy, take them on airplanes as babelets while they scream with the agony of having their tiny fragile eardrums blown out by badly-pressurized cabins, so the parentals can go show little Timmy off to grandma like the numb plastic wind-up dolly they seem to consider him to be. They're all mostly child-abusers, anyway. We wouldn't have had Hitler or Shaka Zulu without them.

I was in a mood this morning. I mean a MOOD. Anybody think that was a mood up there? Oh, Folks, you don't know. I mean the kind of mood that gave me a nose-ring instead of an ear-ring, because things went all to hell while I was off doing errands waiting for the ear-ring and the equipment to autoclave for an hour. Because it was that kind of tattoo parlor, the good kind, where they really care whether or not a customer will come back and trash the place if her septum rots off.

But they should offer psychological help for customers, I'm telling ya, bitch. I got back totally pissed off and pointed at the face of my poor innocent meat-puppet and snapped,"Fuck it. Put it in my nose." And little missy practiced-her-piercing on her own face and ears and nipples and looked it, AND where the hell did she get pink that color for her hair, and it was probably toxic and sinking in -- she just went ahead, told me to take a deep breath, and let it out, and punched the thing through my sweet spot. I'm not blaming her. She just shouldn't be so damned obedient to idiot customers, and if there was ever an idiot customer, it's me. I buy into so much silly crap it would make a donkey blush (Go ahead, picture a blushing donkey. What? Around the nostrils? The ears? The genitalia? Who knows? Is it impossible to embarrass a donkey?).

I mean, I was in a MOOD, mama. I was going to name names. And describe various idiocies. I've never really done it before. Admittedly, there are people out there who have pissed me off, and all they ever heard about it was their face slapped onto a particularly nasty character or two in THE DESERT PEACH, and I quoted them all over the place. Open their nasty mouths around me, will they? Anybody emails me nasty and they're going up on a BLog. People can see what they're really like.

What is it about people? Howl and scream in an email, but then when I hit the BCC Forward button, they're dying of embarrassment. People, if abuse is going to be sent my way, I will share it. I will stand in the village square and point back at our thatched hut and read out abusive behavior to the letter. And with email, stupidity and abuse can spin around the world before the world can. Just ask the Bush administration about that.

America must feel like Anne Scott in "Notting Hill" – "These photos will NEVER go away. No matter what we do, or what we say, every time our name comes up, these photos will show up." Ya gotta love the logo of America we've all just had slipped over our heads in a collective t-shirt. "Hi! I'm an American! I butt-fuck prisoners! I keep slave-girls in Afghanistan!" Thank you very fucking much NOT, Herr Bush, for making it a requirement that I watch my back every single time I get on a plane.

I mean, the things I have put up with. One of my friends -- and my God, I have a few long-suffering, helpful, human friends, if I could bring them sugared grapes on golden platters, I would -- stared at me once and said, "Donna, you put up with an awful lot." I can't even get started on what I've put up with. The things I've seen around me on this planet since I was a kid. I mean, I know the human race is a bunch of stupid monkeys, but HOW stupid can we get?

I mean, do we HAVE to go into a battle and have people shoot at us before we understand that War Is For Stupid People? That all it does it get us and our buddies killed? That it's just a corporate grinder, and we're the meat? We have to be on the front lines, and find a beheaded corpse, and we shoot the people who did it, and then their relatives pull reprisals on us asses, before we realize that people DON't like to be occupied, and they DON't like to be invaded, and they DON't like to be told how to live their lives, any more than we would, and then we finally come home with our head all tangled up because we've discovered -- DISCOVERED! -- that (1) we're mortal and (2) we're being used and (3) THEY don't want us there and they'll kill us until we leave and (4) Civil Wars are going to happen anyway, better sooner than later, because the longer we hold the lid on, the bigger the blow when the pot cracks open and (5) we are going to be fucked up for life, and we will never get over it, and don't kid ourselves and do we really want to? Next time I'll post an essay I wrote back when I was still trying to be nice.

2004-05-07T13:11:00.000-07:00

Hm.

On the other list, batting about the idea about what the actual job of the editor is, how about a panel at the San Diego Comicon International:

"The Editor -- It's Not Just Balloon Placement." Too often, the person who becomes the editor has no idea what her or his job really is. Is it really just a personal satrapy to force your personal values on a group of artists? Or do you owe more to the readership? The company? The creators, in-house and/or freelance? Discussions of editorial ethics, positions on legal issues, payments and the actual position of the editor as opposed -- or not? -- to the creators."

(The balloon placement refers to what a group of folks who wanted to be editors thought they'd be doing, when they showed up to a discussion group on the place of editors in the comics industry. Yes, maybe it really IS time for this panel).

2004-05-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

More on the actions-of-editors... Again, this is from a list, so it will sound as though it's being addressed to a specific group.

"It's like this thing with Girlamatic. I really I think it was just that Lea hasn't been around so much of the industry -- she's been working with companies that, so she may think it's standard -- rather than being a bad standard. And I've reminded Joey that they'd better get a link to Moderntales and the pages they'd paid to read, up on Girlamatic's home page, because that's no way to treat paying customers.

I'm always a little amazed the way the editors -- who usually produce nothing - act. And how they ignore the customers. I mean, I've always written the way I want, but I try to be kind, polite and helpful to customers - that's part of the deal. Not that I always succeed.

My husband told me to "put her in her place," and I was aghast. I'm not out to "put people in their places." I'm out to raise the level of behavior across the board -- and that includes letting people know that censorship is a BAD thing, and that if the people today have more freedom, it's because people from our time fought for it. We're touchy about it. Hell, Roberta's had her books burned! Admittedly by overworked Customs people, but still...

But you're right, back then, now, the Editor Person so often is thinking only of his/her "powers and prerogatives," and not of the book or the reader -- and certainly not of the creator. They'll pull stuff on you, forget what's important, and when you protest it, you're the Bad Guy.

They'll lie, misquote contracts or re-interpret them, and then you find out you forgot the contract has been automatically inactive for the last year and a half... and they were using it as an argument for their editorial powers. I'm not naming names on that one. My own fault for not digging back through every single damn contract two years after I've signed it.

There's an article on the development of teenage brains in TIME, and the way they act because parts of their heads aren't developed yet. A lot of the symptoms sound the same. Are editors as a class in arrested development?

I'm not talking about you people who DO have fully-developed adult brains, of course."

2004-05-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, more input, from a friend in France:

"Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 6:17 PM
...and I've forgotten: I've read on wolffood the story of the kids and the parents.I agree but I guess that you've forgotten one point. In these times the kids and their parents are uglier and sillier than ever.Sure they are all ugly and silly (bleh),but it's hard to say which one of'em is the winner. -- hervé largeaud"

Well, I said there was a backlash coming. And I don't think we're so pissed at the kids, as at the parents who don't do their job. And how can we in the industrialised west even blame the parents? They're trying to work within the nuclear family -- without the normal primate family structure, in which all relatives help with the kids. It's called the extended family, and it was destroyed in the West by the industrial revolution. It leaves a mother at home with screaming kids, locked in with them, trapped, and she's forced to turn to others outside the family for help and society -- even though those others may not want to help, or have her children as part of her company. Too often, a child screaming from migraines gets smothered, because there is no uncle or aunt or silverback male to come take the baby away for playtime, so Mom can get a break. Mothers who have to fly can't leave the children home -- they're forced to take the kids on planes, where the same badly-pressured cabins that make us grownups squint and blow out our noses just damage the poor little buggers' eardrums. I want to feel sympathy -- really -- but kids scream for a REASON. They're in PAIN. And it's the industrial revolution's Nuclear Family that has left mothers in this postion.

The Nuclear Family -- it kills kids.

And they're down on gay marriage? At least gay people usually have a network of friends.

2004-05-04T16:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg

Okay. That's going to be out of date soon, so I'll post here. So take into consideration that this is about 45% wrong, so it's not bad for journalism. I wasn't even talking about Lea's kids in particular -- I was talking about parents and their kids in general. The whole shooting match. So everybody out there gets to be equal-opportunity insulted. Too bad. Parents been insulting me for YEARS. Anybody who brings up censorship insults me. Big-time. I WILL snap your face off (That's RY, of course).

"WITHOUT WALLS

GirlAMatic.com, the female-centred online comic service has had an interesting time over Donna Barr's work of late. Author of such works as "Stinz" and "Desert Peach," Donna has found new spurts of productivity and revenue in online comics.

On her weblog www.wolffood.blogspot.com, Donna described her new GirlAmatic series "Paid Home" as "Full sets of teeth knocked out, and punishment and banishment, and beatings, and submission, and oral sex with sea serpents and mixed-race mermaids. And mermen. And blackmail and sexual compulsion and drowning and sexual power games and intentional hamstringing and tormenting cripples and... It's like Sex In The City in Black, with NO sense of humor. Girlamatic is gonna frickin' love it."

Editor Lea Hernandez was a little freaked. It seems their explicitness had never gone beyond plain nudity and "Paid Home" looked like going that way. She asked Donna to put up a Warning page before viewers saw the comic in question.

Donna wasn't happy with that and moved her whole inventory to rival online comics site, ModernTales.com. In later blog entries she has decried "people with kids want the whole world to be safe for them" by locking them up and suggesting that by having children, Lea was overpopulating the planet.

My favourite line? "Just because I have a twat, doesn't mean I'm going to be their paid baby-sitter."

No wonder Donna referred to herself as GirlAMatic.com's "Company Doberman"

2004-05-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

Guess I hit a nerve...

(Snip, out of context): "... I am clearly "selfish" and "too stupid to use a
condom" or to "keep my legs shut."

Your continuous spewing of this nonsensical screed is ugly, unprofessional
and downright embarrassing. The irony is that you are throwing an even
bigger, more hateful tantrum than any of the "poop-machines" you complain
about.

Grow up."

See? These parents think that the rest of us are supposed to put up with the result of their breeding, and lose their minds the moment one of us says we have had it with the kids.

I've tried to warn them that there is a reason that funding for schools is disappearing. Those of us without children are supporting the raising of children through our taxes -- and getting no balanced benefits in return.

I've tried to warn them that they can't use their kids as an excuse to run the rest of our lives -- and that a backlash is coming that may remove funding and special treatment from them, as the number of people not having kids increases. I mean, these parents care so little about the health of other people around them, they throw sewage-laden diapers into our landfills, by the ton. I'm wincing at the thought of the cholera epidemic when one of these toxic masses bursts out into a city's water source. Or worse. I mean, jeeze, we HAVE sewer systems -- you'd think a parent would take on the responsiblity of washing their own diapers in the toilet, instead of throwing them into the restroom waste paper can, or the city garbage can. EWWWWWW....

But there's something about being a parent that closes off all ability to see what somebody else's life may be like. They automatically assume you not only like their kids, but you want them in your life -- and you want them to run your life. They shut off their ears and minds to any consequences of any of their actions. Other people put up with them for years and years -- but we're starting to crack. Let's hope that blowing off our impatience on the BLogs will be enough.

But you do know the difference between the conservative and liberal mind-sets:

Conservative: "I know better than you!"

Liberal (about a year later): "I TOLD you so..."

"Grow up?"

I will not. Not ever. Kicking and screaming before that ever happens. If I did, I could BECOME the kind of person who SAYS that! As though any of us wretched monkeys on this planet ever grows up. Please.

2004-05-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

More snips from a list, re German Army reforms over the centuries (we talk about everything on that list):

Me: "And I already know a lot of those, and I think people should be
enlightened, and DO tell, C....And tell us why the GErman army was not
allowed to vote, when their wives WERE.)"

C: "Oh no, I think you should tell that part of the story... particularly as
I've never heard of this!"

Me: "After World War One, it was decided (NOT by the Nazis -- by well meaning Generals with WAY too many degrees in philosophy -- it's weird how many German Army officers had degrees in philosophy) that the German Army had to be completely apolitical. Yes, there is a description from Frau Rommel of her and Rommel sitting down and seriously discussing what they were going to do with their ONE vote -- because as a member of the Army, Rommel wasn't allowed to vote.

That particular country has since realized the error of keeping the military politically ignorant and powerless.

Think the US will ever catch up? And while we're at it -- give its troops a full education about the Geneva Conventions...

(Later on, Rommel wasn't allowed to have a pilot's license because he was not a member of the Nazi party -- but you think that stopped him?)"

And then one of the list members asked, "Why should we have a military that is politically knowledgeable, when we don't have a people that is?"

Thank you fricking corporate goons of the 30's for what they did to education in America.

2004-05-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

You know, I just realized that, if you have kids, I get to tell you how to raise them.

I, after all, as a childless person, am being taxed to support the little buggers. But that's not really a complaint with me. After all, you help to support my roads and ferry system and -- big laugh -- health care (if it weren't a complete fantasty, that is). So if you need help with the education of your rug-rats, I can see it as a payoff to society in general. Shake hands. Peace.

However, I am not going to endure it if you decide that you get to tell me how to behave, just because you let somebody put a penis in you, and you were too dumb to wear a condom. And yes, I'm talking to My People now -- the women. Men are too dumb to talk to -- I've given up trying to get my head around how little they are capable of understanding (this does not include my few male friends are are really as smart as women, and you know who you are).

But back to my fellow bitches --

What told you that you get to be Behavior Nazi, the moment you pooped out a rugrat to add to the human infestation on this planet? And at 6 billion people, it's not a population, it's an infestation. You get to tell me that I have to censor what I do? I'm the adult in this equation. Since when does your spawn get the right to supervise my freedom of speech?

Just because I decided I didn't want to add to the burden of humanity and wasn't so selfish I had to have a little live doll all my own, or had to verify my worth because I could breed -- a cat can breed -- I'm supposed to let you run my life?

I'm supposed to walk into public restrooms and find you with your damp naked monkey splayed out on the floor, nasty baby-shit all over the place, and I'm supposed to go around you? I'm supposed to sit back while you throw those filthy diapers into the landfills? Filling my ground-water up with human parasites and bacteria and viruses? Since when did our landfills become sewers for your poop-machines?

If somebody gave me the option to say where my taxes went, I'd set up a fund to have you fixed. Because you are obviously too dumb not to keep opening your legs for the ingress of sperm, or the exit of meat.

ADOPT, if you have to have these things. And keep them the hell away from me, at least until they are old enough to eat without drooling, or to pay attention to the point that I don't have to pick them up and throw them to get them not to act like the stupid little monkeys they are.

Who wants to form a club? Cannibal Aunts Of America. Or of the Fricking World.

2004-04-29T12:05:00.000-07:00

Okay: More email being used for Two Birds. I'm as lazy as the next guy. Just take it as a given we were talking Iraq. You'll have to pick your way through this minefield, and use your own brain to figure out what I was answering. I'm not trying to make the other guys look like idiots, I'm just trying to snip the bits that refer directly to what I have to say. A lot of this is totally out of context, so be forewarned. (Let 'em get their own BLogs.... )

Re: "the soldiers were spit on" anecdote never
happened.

Me: "It's total bullshit. It's the kind of thing that a mean-minded person would do. These guys came back twitchy and with that scared-deer look (eyes HUGE, all pupil -- it's called the 1000-yard stare. You see it in photos of WWII German troops. They all know they're prey, and somebody out there is hunting them).

If anything, people were kind to them. They were just kids, fer cripesakes. Skinny little things. Babies sent to bleed.

Spitting on someone -- now WHICH side is more liable to spit on someone? Liberal-minded people who want peace? Or war-eaters who hate people of other sexes and colors?

They're always accusing us of doing what they like to do.

Spitting on anyone -- BRRRR.

Hell, I apologize to the trees when I have to move in the woods -- "It's just water. Look, it's good fertilizer! And I'm burying it next to your roots." Trees are huge -- I'm insulting something THAT big?"

Re: "it wasn't like the movies, and there was no hail the conquering hero."

Me: "That's the movies' fault -- not the soldiers'.

Start a program of teaching children, early on, that those are all ACTORS -- and those are all scripts. And to get to the library and read.

And make sure every single child gets a copy of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT.

(Yeah, I read it seven times, so I tried to See The Elephant myself, and became -- agh! -- a WAC. They -- um -- wouldn't let me out of the country. See if I keep the general's damn teletype running next time. @!$#$!!!!)

(And the book that local Veteran's groups took up on my recommendation -- Remarque's next book -- THE ROAD BACK. All the dissapointment and anger and PTSD is right there, from another generation, and another people).

Don't even let your sons and daughters get hauled into this stuff being fed the usual garbage. Don't let THEM get fooled or treated like ignorant cannon fodder just because YOU were. It hurts to talk? Do it anyway. You want to protect your families, get the patriotic cobwebs out of their heads, and help them to THINK.

Re: "They needed to hear that they were welcomed back as gladiators,
protectors, etc. They needed to feel clean and sane again."

Me: "This is the problem. People need to believe all this crap is FOR something -- and it's not. They always get schnookered.

They will never be clean or sane again. They did horrible things, and that blood will never wash away; a decent person would never want to forget it. But they don't need to try to pretend it didn't happen, or it was for some "Good War." They can only work with what they've got. They can deal with it, slowly, painfully, with our help, even if we can't know completely what they went through. We cannot ignore them. We can't hand them some medals or a parade or a job, and tell them to Get Over It, or to Get A Job, or to Get On With Life. They're repositories of terror, and they need to tell us what was done to them -- AND what they did.

No, I'm not asking for some kind of religous confession or remorse -- that's crap. We need their knowledge, experience and memories. Those are precious, and need to be retained.

In corporate or imperial war, nobody's getting protected but the stock interests. Those soldiers over there are not protecting me. The more angry people are around the world, the more dangerous it is for me and people like me, every time we get on a plane. You can't stop really angry, grieving, bitter people. They will GET your ass, sooner or later. You can ONLY try to deal with root causes. It's all you've got.

Unless, of course, you're all safe and warm in the White House, and you don't give a big whip whether the plane I'm on gets run into a building, except for propaganda photos. And I don't even get a gun. I get dragged into this against my will, just trying to live my life.

Yes, I'm pissed. And getting more pissed by the day.

Re: "These kids will come back ...they will have a lot of the same mental crap to deal with."

Me: "The veteran's groups need to be there. There were more of them for the people after Vietnam than after World War Two. And we can't lie to them and tell them it was FOR something. We can only help them become the kind of people who will tell the next generation NOT to do these things.

Jesus, the Germans did it for THEIR soldiers! We can't do this for OURS?

Re: "He'd been there over a year... We haven't spoken yet, but I know that for now, he is where he wants to be."

Me: "And will he come back and admit WHO makes the biggest casualty in a war?

Soldiers?

Or women and kids?

Where are the medals and the parades and the mourning walls for the women and children -- the majority of the war dead?

Those people don't even have guns. Hell, they don't have Humvees or armor or defense parameters. They go out and get water and food daily -- and always have -- with their own fragile skins -- while the forces of the empires and corporations throw metal at each other, and right through them.

And then WHOSE fear do we get to hear about?"

2004-04-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

Discussion of a book I have up at www.booksurge.com:

From Stephen Holland at Page 45 (good shop -- www.page45.com):

And he'd done a review talking about the bad production values (too true!) Here 'tis:

"The Grandmothers' Hive (£9-99) by Donna Barr. Painted colour artwork throughout, a rare treat from Donna, and outside of the occasionally opaque bits, it's both a joy and the strength of the work. Check out the cover - the ivy-encrusted old stone house, surrounded by autumnal trees. Beautiful. Unfortunately this surreal children's story, a journey up into (then swiftly down from) the tallest reaches of the tower, infested with gaga grandmothers and assorted livestock, is told in a stilted verse whose lettering isn't all that clear, which doesn't always match the illustrations on each page, and is littered with foreign words and phrases for which Barr has to provide a glossary at the back. It's quite the chore, and it's badly laid out, most of the problems stemming from landscape layout, with its spine at the top, like a calendar. Just awful production values, really. I don't think I'm going to be able to forgive myself for saying anything negative about Donna or her work, and before now I've never had to. But hopefully this will at least alert DESERT PEACH fans to some new Barr material. In colour." -- Stephen

And then my answer:

"Oh, and I TOTALLY agree on The Grandmothers' Hive (shudder)-- but if we hadn't turned the pages sideways, considering that we only had a limited amount of sizes to choose from, the pages would have been EENTSY, and even muddier. It's some of those awful compromises we have to make with print-on-demand, when we dump some of the compromises we had to make with offset/webset. They can't cut POD yet -- they have to go with limited sizes.

We're working on the revised addition, right now, will full new scans. Believe me, I agree with everything you said about production values. And we're using new fonts. When it's up and prettier, we'll email everybody.

(Of course, that's always much better than having somebody look at your book and, with wrinkled brow, murmuring "Nice production values." I've had to do that. To the point that, when I praise somebody's production values, I'd reassure someone that it IS praise, and not blowing off their artwork!).

I should mention that I have a friend who can actually read this verse out loud! Incredible. He's done it, more than once. And in public (shameless). I ain't no poet, that's for sure. It's as much tongue-in-cheek as anything.

That's why the book is print-on-demand; it was done more to share the artwork and the insane calligraphy with the more completist readers."

My webguy said it would be a good idea to put this up on the BLog, as opposed to putting it in the book.

>^..^<

2004-04-25T13:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, one more for today.

People, those of you who want censorship -- in any form -- no matter how mild -- for your kids' sake or whatever -- had better know that if you bring it up to artists/writers like me, we are going to blow sky high.

There's a REASON you'd better pussy-foot around us on this subject. You're looking at everything from bookburning to burning of the author, imprisonment, you name it, when you're dealing with censorship through the ages. In the US, comic book authors still face the threat of house arrest.

And I'm a woman more than a 1/2-century old. I remember when I was always being told to shut up. Why? Because I was cleft, instead of crested, to quote Queen Bess. And it was always because some child might see.

Put the kids into purdah. Lock 'em up where they aren't threatened. Keep YOUR eye on 'em -- don't expect us to. And don't expect us to write Mary Poppins because otherwise it might upset your spawn.

And don't act all hurt and pretend to be reasonably appalled when you bring up censorship to authors, and they bite your face off.

Right here, I'm taking back any apologies I ever made because somebody's feelings got hurt because they didn't like MY reaction when THEY started talking censorship.

And don't think code words like "barrier pages" is going to get you off the hook, buster.

2004-04-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

Talking' to a colleague on another list, and he said that BD in DOONESBURY and Willie in GET FUZZY had both lost legs in Iraq. So here's my response:

"Aw, poor BD. He was dumb back then, and he's dumb now. Tell me if losing
a leg has given his body more blood to send to his brain?"

Colleague said Trudeau was handling it better:

Me: "Well, it's not fair to the Get Fuzzy author. Trudeau was around for the Vietnam idiocy, so he's kinda just running the same take. Matter of practice. The other guy wasn't around back then, and it's all new and fresh to him."

And after another colleague's comment about BD's importance in Trudeau's work:

Me: "BD is the voice for brainless patriots! They we will always have with us.
Who else would express these viewpoints so well? Never get rid of a really
good character, you'll kick yourself.

What's Beetle Bailey up to? Mort always has something to say against war. Been there, done that, don't want to do it again.

Was on a panel with a kid back from Iraq, who'd got a purple heart when his vehicle went over a mine. I should state that the following conversations were made by both him and me in the spirit of trying to lighten up a very dark panel. Later in the conversation, I said,

"Well, you know, if you shoot at people, they WILL shoot back!"

Him: "Yeah, I found that out!" Then:

"Hey, you're the one with the purple heart -- you're the one forgot to duck."

He, comically wailing:
"It wasn't fair! They're supposed to put up little red flags that say 'Mines here, don't run over this!' And it wasn't my fault -- I wasn't driving!"

He sounded like the guys back from Vietnam: "I was more scared than anybody! I forgot to duck. He was doing his job, I was doing mine, I guess he just did his a little better." Guys like that are now opening up restuarants in Vietnam with the guys who shot 'em.

Nothin' like combat to kick the patriotic crap out of people. Too bad we have to have wars, because people can't figure this stuff out on their own.

I mean, what does it TAKE to remember the very simple idea: "War is for
stupid people." ?

Huh. Looks like I just wrote the material for my BLog today."

>^..^<

2004-04-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

Well, welcome to the time in the day when I look in the mirror and beat my head against it. Those of you who do this, get to laugh. Those of you who don't -- GET A MIRROR.

This is my nasty quote Girlamatic was using to promote the site:

"A nice little controlled perfect we're-all-the same, we're-all-right ring fence enclosure like the boys have been running for years. A ring through your nose. A ring around your neck. We all play by our rules. It's our football. No girls allowed. You draw like a girl. Don't think for yourself or try a new style or say scarey things, cuz it might touch on the little tender soft shrinking testicles. Shit, this industry thinks it's being revolutionary every time it invents a gay character." Me, 2002.12.30

Now if people know I talk like that, and have that attitude -- why do they get all surprised when I talk like that, and have that attitude? When it serves their agenda, I'm their Company Doberman, and they sit back and laugh. When the Doberman shows she ain't Company, and they get bit -- why are they all surprised? (I actually had "Company Doberman" on a resume at one point, because I turned salesmen and winos back from the front doors of the business I was secretarying for.)

Do they think I reserve my sharp tongue for my enemies? Because I don't really have any enemies. Enemies are people who hang your cat from a tree, or stalk you in an alley with a knife. THAT's an enemy. Everbody else is just my fellow poor monkeys.

You know what my problem is? I apologize too much. Everybody else gets to get their backs up, and get all pissy over a few words, or an unintentional screwup (and Lord knows I make 'em) and I'M supposed to be the adult and fix the problem and apologize and make everything all right. I'm supposed to get head-first into their idiot self-serving projects, and make nice and be the team player.

People, I'm not a team player. I've never been. It's why I'm poor and crazy (and I have a beach and you don't!). I've got a few very select people around me, extremely competent people, who keep contact, and just want to get things done. And I have a world of incredible readers, retailers and colleagues. As I've said before -- and this time I mean it! -- I will not have or make any time for touchy freaks, or people who lockstep in an industry and expect me to do the same, or bad-tempered people who make my friends afraid (I could throttle those guys; don't get me started on a recent incident, when a good friend's eyebrows worked with worry, and I groveled rather than keep that look on my friend's face). I'm going to save my time and good words and gratitude (if only I had enough to pay them back!) for these people.

Buddha says we have to spread the Fearlessness. I swear -- I SWEAR! This time I'm going to do it.

Yeah. Right... Tell me when...

2004-04-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I DID give Lea the twitchies (Paid Home, see below).

Cuz she got her back all up, and we ended up putting all my material on Moderntales. Of course, when she tried to put on a barrier page to my work, I blurted out (well, blurt-typed out), "Just because I have a twat, doesn't mean I'm going to be their paid baby-sitter."

Which was a little too pointed for Lea. I forgot she's got kids (most of my gang don't have kids) and people with kids have a real sore point about censorship. They KNOW they had the kids, and they're supposed to be taking care of them and not dumping them on other people, or intruding into adult non-kid lives, but when one of us who decided not to help overpopulate the planet makes the point, something kicks in -- I dunno what, guilt? -- to make them all defensive.

And Lea had been using one of my most nasty quotes about mainstream comics, quite gleefully, to skewer the boy-brigade that runs the industry. But I forgot that too often, them what can dish it out can't take it (and I should know that because I'm one of them! Like the rest of the damn monkeys on this planet...).

And of course, good people got dragged into the fracas (they always do), and I feel bad about that. I apologized to Lea for hurting her feelings (want to make me back off? Act hurt. Works every time). I should apologize to the good people for intruding on their decent lives, too.

Anyway...

This is better. Moderntales has a much wider scope for mature content (GOD! I hate the context of the terms "mature" and "adult." People automatically think it's sex. We should be putting the term "teenage" or "adolescent" on the stuff we don't want the kids to see. The real Mature or Adult stuff just goes over their heads. Anyway).

And people can see all my work at www.Moderntales.com Which includes some pretty twitchy-making stuff.

So you're forewarned.

But if you still want to see some great stuff (that will not frighten your children) go over to www.girlamatic.com!

2004-04-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

Lea has pointed out that Paid Home (see below) needs a barrier page that protects naughty serfs at work.

When I put up the barrier page, I'm going to have to note where folks can get bailout programs, so the boss don't get a clue their slaves are subverting the work ethic...

2004-04-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

When I wrote the following report back in April of 2003, I didn't know how close I'd come to what would happen.

When I hear military wives on the radio, now, their voices shaking, attempting to be brave when they know they may never see their loved ones again, yet desperately trying not to know about what was actually happening, or why, I am tempted by the most uncompassionate urges. I feel the urge to sneer, "I told you so," at these women. Or "You threw them away for lies. How could you?"

You have to understand that I expect more of a woman. I expect her to be strong, informed, and in control. Men -- well, I don't expect much of them. They have a very bad track record, when it comes to caving in to whatever form of violence is going. But women? I want to be compassionate toward them, but they are capable of strength and of putting their feet down, and refusing to take the easy route.

Maybe it's because I had such a strong mother.

In the meantime, I will continue to try to be compassionate toward these women.

And NOT mutter "I told you so" ever time I hear one of them whimpering on the radio.

(The last line in the report is my attempt at future magic. If I SAY these people are trustworthy, they will be so. So much for me as a witch.)

In the "Enemy" camp.
Donna Barr 2 April, 2003.

I've been thinking about the Saturday, March 29, 2003, Support The Troops rally (in Silverdale, Washington), and trying to figure out what -- among the many things I saw -- are the most disturbing.

First of all, when I had a chance to talk quietly to people, I -- as I expected -- found that these were no more war-mongers than you or I. They didn't want to invade anybody. Like so many average people in so many wars, they don't want the people on the other side killed, either. They want peace and a way to feed their children and have their normal lives, like anybody else. This was not a surprise. I hope very much that the people around the world are able to separate the support of the troops from the urge for war and conquest. The people of Indonesia have already organized -- in a Christian and Moslem Coalition -- to supress fanatical attack upon western countries, because they've seen the peace marches, and know the American people are not monsters -- but we have to hope that the support rallies are not misinterpreted as the thirst for war. This can only lead to more attacks on what are perceived as aggressive countries. We can only hope that the peace rallies remain large enough to offset the effect.

There was now and again a low-minded sentiment (such as the sign "War solves everything" -- but I think this was just a joke in very bad taste, in an attempt to reverse peace protest signs without thinking about the meaning), but the majority of the people just wanted their relatives to come back safely, and the war not to last very long. That they expressed sympathy for Iraqi civilians was a credit to them.

It was where you ran into the professional groups that you realized the amount of propaganda that had been perpetrated on these people. A local radio station, KVI, which is under Clear Channel, used a woman whose "husband was in the war" as an excuse -- a kind of political human shield, if you will -- to quash all information.

Did this woman even know that her husband has the right -- the duty -- under the Geneva Convention to disobey illegal orders? That he will be court-martialed if he does? That I am one of the peace movement who will try very hard to have him released from unfair -- and under the Geneva Conventions, illegal -- confinement and prosecution? Does she know that our military is using heavy metals in its weaponry, and that her husband, if he does come anywhere near the country, will be contaminated, as will their children, if he contracts radiation poisoning? That these heavy metals -- with a 1/2 life of 14-million years -- are poisoning the earth in Iraq (as are the weapons that the other side is using -- a horrible chemical brew has been used by both sides with no care for the needs of the civilian population, to forward military goals). Has she yet found out that the government has cut the veterans' health benefits? These are Navy people, and less likely to outrightly suffer from a land battle, but she shouldn't be left in ignorance to serve the cynical ends of the media.

A group of Navy wives accused me of having used drugs, and of having accused them of being "baby killers." I wasn't sure what that last accusation was about -- unless it was a leftover of rare incidents that occured during Vietnam. (I had, of course, used the same drugs they used -- caffeine and alcohol. These are the legal American drugs, along with nicotine. They have a tendency to exite us, I must admit. We really should lay off them, if they weren't so highly addictive.) The women said they had been in Iraq, and asked if I'd seen the atrocities. I wanted to get more details about it, specifically to ask if they’d ever been off a ship or outside a military compound, or if they’d been there during a war, what had caused the atrocities --and whether they’d been caused by the local government, or American forces. But they began to chant "USA USA," waving flags. Somehow they got abortion or how the UN supported it, or something, into the mix. It was a stew of damaged misinformation. They had at their disposal a number of confused slogans, and they called names, but there was no attempt to think about the situation themselves.

I felt sorry for these women -- they'd been hurt a lot. Somebody had threatened them a lot. One of them had been in the Navy herself, and I wanted to talk to her, having been in the Army. But in each case, the radio station and the wives, they said, "They told us somebody like this might show up." One of the members of the station went to get the police -- I said, Good idea, I'll come with you." However, I got stopped by somebody else, and we got to talking, and the radio person disappeared. These crowds are always hard to keep track of.

I don't know if anybody in this march had applied for a permit. Leading onto the overpass, the people had to cross very heavy traffic coming right in off a freeway, in three lanes. There was no cross-walk. Old people, children, people pushing strollers, were having to take their chances (I did, too -- baaaad jay-walker). People were crossing with little care for the lights, just bunching up and moving across in the weight of their numbers, at the psychological moment. There was no police control of the intersection. Since a lot of people had showed up in a lot of large vehicles, with a lot of blind spots, I winced at the thought of the collision that constantly threatened. I finally called the State Patrol and asked them to please get some crowd- and traffic-control into place, before somebody got maimed or killed. I hope they showed up. I don't want to claim that the police had not been notified because the organizers wanted to say that "They didn't need police protection, because they weren't dangerous," but as well and centrally organized as this rally was, I cannot believe that somebody simply forgot to arrange traffic control. It's one thing to believe something -- it's another to use it to endanger lives to make a point. These were perfectly decent people, and did not deserve to get run over. Save the political statements for the airwaves and the signs -- but don't deny people police protection.

Anyway, I guess that's a rally report. These are decent people -- but their loved ones are being horribly misused by our government. I cannot -- I WILL not -- believe that they are willing to throw their loved ones away to pay for their lifestyle. Or to force their beliefs, way of life, or way of government down someone else's throats. The decent people are always in the majority. Trust in them.

2004-04-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

From a recent forum, after I announced certain explicit stories that would be going up on the net:

Lea (she said I could use her name): Sounds like it's going to be at least as explicit as recent episodes of same--which means I want them behind a content warning page. Girlamatic isn't an all-ages site, but with the general content not being what I'd call X-Rated, I think a barrier page is appropriate."

Me:

"Just don't call it Adult Material.

I gave Lea the twitchies... I gave Lea the twitchies... na na na na NA na.

I think the Barrier Page should read: If your child is reading this, and you don't know about it, we will prosecute you for child neglect.

Which is what I'm gonna do. Hell, I've already used it. On a panel, an indignent parent demanded to know how they would know my books were for grown-ups?

After I simply OPENED the damn thing and displayed it to him, I then said, well, what I said above.

Panel and audience applauded.

Where are the goddamn parents!!!???? I am sick and tired of being an UNPAID BABYSITTER. Just because I have a twat, I'm supposed to look out for their stinky naked squall-machines?

Or their unripened bondage-curious goth babies?

Or it could say this: "Get your kid away from me. Or I will EAT it."

And, yes, this is going up on www.wolffood.blogspot.com (with names erased to protect the twitchy).

Donna Barr
Cannibal Aunt.

2004-04-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

A letter to Scott Simon, Weekend Edition, NPR:

"Dear Mr. Simon (with the understanding that I get a kick out of your coverage and your tone. And that infective laugh):

You made a remark on Saturday's show, concerning Nazi attempts to cover up their genocide: "How could such a technologically-advanced people have done something so morally bankrupt?" Or words to that effect.

You were speaking to Elvis Mitchell, the movie reviewer, and he did not answer your question. I realize that you were playing Devil's Advocate, but I think your question might have been a little too subtle.

Were you actually trying to make the connection between industrial technology and fascism? And were you pointing out that, according to their moral compass, the Nazis were doing something perfectly moral?

Their morality, was, of course, that which had been developing in the West -- and sadly enough, among the white race -- for over 500 years. According to that morality, a single race was morally superior, and its actions, no matter how heinous, were, in the long run, for the greater good. It was often necessary to hide actions that less enlightened (sic) or less intelligent (sic) people may consider bad, because otherwise their reactions might lead to inefficient results. It's all right to dump toxins into the river, because it keeps everybody locally in their jobs. Including the local politicians backing the pork-barrel and corporate projects.

The Nazis were, in the majority, of Germanic backgrounds. All of those with German relatives can tell you how obsessive and intense the people tends to be. Of all the peoples on the planet, they have a tendency to take things to the logical extreme. If it was all right for Americans and the British, the French, the Dutch, to import black peoples as chattel slaves/organic machinery, why was it not all right to import slave workers from white countries? If it was all right for the Belgians to use black people as faceless, disposable transportation devices for the production of rubber and the collection of ivory, then wouldn't it be all right to use Russians to produce food for the Fatherland? And if they proved less efficient, wasn't it all right to clear them off the land, and introduce a superior (sic) culture? If it was all right for the American doctors to recommend -- even practice -- eugenics -- why was it not all right to lace large-scale production facilities into the use of slaves and ultimate disposal of unwanted genetic material?

We have to remember that when the question of eugenic studies came up during the Nuremberg trials, and the defeated doctors began to quote their research, that part of the trial was quickly ended.

To put it simply, the seeds of Auschwitz were in the Spanish gold mines and the cotton gin.

If anything, the Nazis were far more even-handed in their treatment of the races than so-called more moral people in our present. To them, everybody was an inferior race, and available for conquest, invasion, enslavement or racial purification. In fact, it was these very actions that began to awaken the white race to the realization that these activities were inherently bad, or immoral, regardless of their ultimate end. What white men, as a majority, would have actually looked at, or ceased, their oppression of women, "colored races" or children, without having experienced the bad effects upon themselves?

(I will not include the actions of the white race during the American Civil War. To put it bluntly, that situation resembled two men who had been raping a woman for 300 years, and then one of them, after having decided she was no longer attractive, deciding to knock the other one off her, and to release her into the street, with no real protection, and minimal compensation. And the original point of releasing her was to deny her use to the other man. A particularly nasty form of Dog-In-The-Manger, if you will. It might have been, in the end, a moral action, but the chest-puffery that goes on in the white race that supposedly fought to release her is a little tooth-gritting. It could be stated in a less hypocritical or self-congratulatory manner.)

I do know that my German friends were appalled by recent actions, starting more than a year ago. "Are you crazy?" they emailed me. "Are you stupid? Did you NOT learn anything from our history?" Of all people on the planet, the Germans may presently be the most truly moral people. They learned the hard way, and they're not forgetting. Let's hope that their obsessiveness, this time, will continue down a less harmful road. I should mention that when I told my German friends that most Americans did not know that Hitler had been voted down three times before stealing an election -- well, I can't exactly duplicate someone sputtering in email, but you probably get the idea. They do not realize how intensely our media works to separate their experience from the rest of the world. It would be very bad for the corporations that run the media if anyone made the actual connection.

It's been said that nothing happens for a bad reason.

At least until humanity can learn to look ahead and have more compassion for their fellow creatures, regardless of who they are -- it may be true.

And yes, of COURSE, this is going up on www.wolffood.blogspot.com

With an RSS feed:

http://www.2rss.com/atom2rss.php? atom=http://wolffood.blogspot.com/atom.xml

(This is the local one:)

http://www.2rss.com/atom2rss.php?atom=http://clallamatbay.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Yeah, they let me into the Chamber of Commerce. Be very afraid."

2004-04-17T11:01:00.000-07:00

Friends of mine have an incredibly lovely little Chinese girl they adopted about 5 (?) years ago. She is a little activist, and the light of the local sci/fi/fantasy conventions. Oh, yes, her picture in her stroller, gleefully holding up an "No Iraq War" poster at the Seattle marches, is a delight. It was published in the Bremerton Sun. For once my stupid digital camera was working. If you'd like to see it, she's at: http://www.stinz.com/home/news/march.htm

2004-04-16T14:30:00.000-07:00

Told my webguy to look up the rest of the Ramification Stories for Paid Home (under "Rotten Pot" at www.Girlamatic.com).

(These are in the form of paper manuscripts. We're putting them up on the net as webcomics).

This is my description to find them in the crisping old pages:

"Hey, when you start getting near the end of Paid Home, I'd like to continue
the story. It starts -- well, it starts with a soccer game. It's in the
embroidered book that shows the blue skull-faced thing holding the bleeding
head. You should recognize it because as it goes along, there's a large
scene of a soccer audience, army and SS, cheering and throwing things. It
goes quite a while...

Next email:

"Yeah -- let me know if you have any trouble finding it. It's a story that branches out and branches out, and effects a lot of people. Full sets of
teeth knocked out, and punishment and banishment, and beatings, and
submission, and oral sex with sea serpents and mixed-race mermaids. And
mermen. And blackmail and sexual compulsion and drowning and sexual power
games and intentional hamstringing and tormenting cripples and...

It's like Sex In The City in Black, with NO sense of humor.

Girlamatic is gonna frickin' love it."

2004-04-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

Oh, lord.

I can remember the reaction the war protesters got from the military wives and the mainstream media -- we were "unpatriotic." We were "cowardly" and "weak."

Well, we didn't stick our heads in the sand, and willingly allow the government to scoop up our dear, precious husbands and sons and brothers. We FOUGHT against it. We knew it was for oil. We weren't going to give up that easily.

And now the military wives and the mainstream media and the conservative Democrats, and the Republicans Who Are Just Waking Up are all outraged because their loved ones -- whom they threw away -- are dying, and the government won't give them back as promised.

Let's try some new definitions, shall we?

Conservative: We always know better.

Liberal: We TOLD you so.

Donna Barr
Having a REAL hard time being compassionate.

2004-04-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

Welp, gonna be out of town for the Easter weekend.

Norwescon! Readings, panels (why did I get the science track so heavily?), masquerade, all kinds of good stuff.

Check it out at: www.norwescon.com

My webcomics at www.moderntales.com and www.girlamatic.com will be on hiatus while I'm doing the Norwescon thing.

2004-04-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

I received this message, with an attached voice recording in my email this morning. Once again, the comics people come through:

"This is a message sent to all the international contributors of the "Alan Moore: Portrait of an extraordinary gentleman" book after the official annoucement of the 36,000 US dollars donation to the Alzheimer's charities. More info at www.millidge.com.

It's a very short message but a very important one for me: Again, thank you all from the depth of my heart for the support to this amazing project! I think we have made some difference in the fight against this terrible disease.

From Italy
smoky man - www.ultrazine.org"

2004-04-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

From my friend and colleague, Kjartan Anorsson in Iceland, who reports that my book "The Grandmothers' Hive" (www.stinz.com for the link) is in his local library!

I just wanted to put up the name of the library because it has handsome words.

'"Borgarbókasafn Reykjavíkur", the Reykjavik public library. I've been
haunting it since it was in an old sea-captain's house. The new, modern
library building has less oldworld charm, but it has lots more room,
which more than compensates.'

I think that first word might be related to the German Buergerbuechersammeln -- citizen's book collection. By way of many years and much distance.

(AGH! My degree in German language and literature strikes again).

2004-04-01T12:21:00.000-08:00

In answer to an message from www.page45.com (Specifically http://www.page45.com/newarriv.html) and a review of my latest book, NEW SOULS:

"Yes, I do love to draw. And I'm so glad it shows!

Oh, if you miss Stinz, as I get more pages, they'll be going up as
webcomics, just as I ran all the pages that are in New Souls. But first...

I'm presently working on the last BOSOM ENEMIES (See? No more scary stuff.
And you aren't the only one that series has scared silly). Cuz I'm paid to
do it, and that's why I've done so many issues of it. And it's too much
fun -- the boys are in San Francisco, ca 1972! As their human selves. And
they can't get out of their uniforms... and they stink... And Steph is just
so PISSED OFF. Stewart is eating popcorn and whatever else he's been
missing. It's so goofball, and so much fun. We are about to watch Steph
try skateboarding... in THAT uniform... It'll be going up on
www.moderntales.com as soon as I finish running THE ERSATZ PEACH -- the
creator anthology that has been sold out so long.

And I've nearly finished a rough of THE DESERT PEACH, taking place in Hell,
the 1990's border riots in Rostock, and far in the future (with a VERY BAD
descendant, who is pushing contraband -- well, you'll see what he's
pushing). As soon as I've drawn THAT all out, and got it up on
www.moderntales.com, then...

ARTWITCH. A Stinz story, in which somebody finally gets a handle on that
awful End Of The War magic... SORT OF... There will probably be
casualties...

And when all these books are complete as webcomics, they'll go up as POD on
Booksurge (Diamond WILL negotiate for POD -- and they work with retailers.
No more warehouseing!). For a link to my books THE GRANDMOTHERS' HIVE and AN INSUPPORTABLE LIGHT [The Stinz novel]-- {a link so I get a little bigger percentage} -- check out www.stinz.com).

(I stopped drawing for about 6 months while we prepared to move -- and I'm making up for lost time with a vengeance)"

2004-03-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

This was a reply on a board list, to a guy who... would you believe... got into a fight with the editor, and, in an effort to put her down, used the term "feminine mentality." I mean, right there on a board where there's a gang o' females, and we know damn well what he meant what he said it (basically it translates as "hey, you stupid bitch" -- with "bitch" being used as it usually is -- "Female who is getting in the way of my getting my way."). Does he want to work with us? Now or in the future? Good god, we talk to each other -- speech is the superior human quality, and we have it in spades.

I mean, what, is he living in the 1950's? Or just in a hole someplace? Does the guy use the n-word while he's at it? Has he NEVER studied even high-school biology? I'm flabbergasted, how about you? Anyway, here's my reply, in which I attempt to talk through a jaw that I keep having to lift up for the floor:

"Real quick note to the guy on this list who made guys look bad (AGAIN. GEEZE, you guys must be getting tired of guys like this!):

Do NOT be using terms like "feminine mentality," unless you want us CN's to get out the big guns.

Remember -- WE have the big amunition. And what is it? It is your gender's track record, over recorded history. It is a big, nasty skeleton you do NOT want us dragging out of the closet.

Us CN's are the NICE gender. Our track record is pretty damn good. Meet one of us in the wilderness, and we're liable to feed you, rather than kill you. Hell, we'll even SLEEP with you people! One of our great qualities is forgiveness -- we can even, with allowances, forgive your gender's track record. But do not -- do NOT be trying to go up against OUR track record. All YOU have is popguns. WE have nuclear weapons -- and I'm talking fission.

Just work with us, and be totally grateful we even talk to you, much less work with you. Anybody else would be screaming for about 99 life sentences apiece, just to even out the share of history. I mean, there's no other group comes CLOSE to what we've endured from you. And think twice -- or 30 times -- before even beginning to think you have a right to use terms like "feminine mentality" without getting a response. Freedom of speech cuts both way -- and we have bigger and sharper knives.

But other than that, you're very attractive to us, and GOD, you have nice asses...

I think I just said, "You're lucky you're so cute."

So look in the mirror, smile, and be totally happy that you're one of your people that we TALK to. You've made the cut. You've succeeded. Yay for you. Now don't blow it, boy-child.

(If you want to know what CN means, just sit and think about it a bit. It shouldn't be hard to figure out -- or to GET it. Hint: What did John Lennon say?)"

2004-03-22T11:26:00.000-08:00

Been busy...

Superminister!

Go look!

www.stinz.com

AND the www.moderntales.com Stinz story "Hairy" ends on March 25.

Starting directly after:

The Once and Future Peach: four sketches of the Desert Peach's lives, from the 1600s to the future. Starting March 27 2004 at www.moderntales.com

The Desert Peach: "Peach Slices," which has been out of print so long. Catch it starting April 5 2004 at www.moderntales.com

2004-03-22T10:57:00.000-08:00

So.... if anybody wants their copy of "New Souls," and hasn't gotten it yet, it's because it's just now shipping. Minor prepress problems, but they held things up a bit. However, the book looks good (thanks, Eric!) and got shipped (thanks, Roberta and the gang at Fantagraphics, who helped out another publisher, namely me). Copies available at Stinz website (link left).

When on the beach this morning, met the guy who sends in the mussels for pcp (red tide) testing. So..... this household is leaving off the shellfish for the spring/summer and turning to the woods. This morning the harvest consisted of nettles and toothwort. Decided to bury the toothwort tubers under the deck, where it's cool and moist, and to just eat the plants. They're members of the mustard family, and taste like spicey turnips. Nettles ended up stewed with spaghetti.

Yesterday, stopped off at the Neah Bay Cemetery. Several interesting totem poles, and a picture board with a very nice rendition of carved and painted Seamonster and Thunder Snake (I think. Don't quote me). And a small wooden killer whale with a moon face carved into the front of the fin, and what looked like feather or fin forms lightly scratched into the fins near the body. Most graves hand-dug, and decorated with devotional objects (angels, flowers, religious statues) and favorite things. Including the guy with the little Crown Royal bottle shoved down into the soil. Spirits for the spirits. Very quiet.

Check out Superminister at the Stinz website (see links, left). A friend is re-registering as a Baptist Minister, so he can perform gay marriages if it comes up.

2004-03-21T10:07:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Eric Schneider for helping me set up my BLog page (Yes, I could have done it myself, but Eric does this stuff like he's breathing, and it frees me up to do more ART! When I'm not out finding scallops on the beach).

So I'm going to list a few things in this first post that have been going on in the past, starting with the latest first:

19 March, 2004

HAIL!

Gorgeous sunshine, headed for the beach, even though the sky over Vancouver
Island was the color of slate. Found an agate. Discussed buying wood with
Richard (Wealth up here is "Whoo whoo! Look -- a full woodshed!") and reassured his girl that the reason I'd used two fresh halibut heads off the beach the other day WASN't because we were starving, but because I wanted to see if I could do it. Talked about making nettle soup, too.

Wind got ugly, and we decided the walk for fresh air was getting just a
little TOO fresh.

Just as I got home, the wind and the hail hit. The ground went white in
about a minute.

Talk about timing.

18 March, 2004

I was excited about the Vagina Monologues letters exchange in the Forks Forum.
They'd far beyond anything any other paper would dare, anywhere else in this state. So..., I've added a few more sparks to the fire. It starts at the quotation marks:

"Some of you didn't like the Vagina Monologues, because the play uses
language you don't like, and shows women the way you don't prefer.

That's your problem. Deal with it.

Enough with demands that women be "ladylike," modest, silent, or curb our vocabularies because we may do or discuss something you fear.

Enough, assuming that women do nothing in this or any other community but serve tea or make quilts. Tea and quilts are fine, but we do and are capable of so much more.

Enough, that violence is printed and read as a joke in the police blotter,
and sold as entertainment and pushed on the evening news -- but sex,
heaven's joyful gift to us all, is hidden and despised and feared.

Enough of telling girls and young women that their sexuality is evil and
dirty, and that they have no control over it. Enough of controlling how
they -- and all women -- think or speak about it or anything else, or when
or where.

ENOUGH.

Donna Barr
Clallam Bay, WA

(Go www.mapquest.com it. We're not on the butt-end of the lower 48 -- but you can see it from here.)

17 March, 2004

Just came back from the Chamber of Commerce meeting here in Clallam Bay.

They're totally psyched about turning the area into a tourist/eco-friendly
area, and loved the idea of all the artists we have. The place is filthy
with artists.

Have found a wholesaler for artists' supplies; going to take the
application over the Rick at Final Destiny (tattoos, art gallery and future
band club, or so he plans) and crunch funding suggestions and we're going to
see if we can't have the mini-art-supply store up and running in time for
Fun Days in July.

There is a feeling of excitement, development of the social structure and
rescue of the rivers and forests up here.

And everybody else is broke, too and don't give a damn -- money means
nothing here. I said I had no real front yard -- and the guy who runs the
Angler's Resort swept his arm across the view of the ridges and beaches and
said, "Whadaya mean? THAT's your front yard!"

As my friend Barb says, "If you're poor in paradise, are you really poor?"

Oh, Makah Days cancelled this year -- the road is being fixed -- so you
might want to come to Fun Days in July. And the Kalakala Ferry is in Neah
Bay! You can even get a Kalakala burger ("Lots of rust and it's wrapped in
aluminum foil." No, kidding -- but you can get one.)

The Vagina Monologues, put on in Forks not long ago, has sparked an exchange
of letters the likes of which I've never seen in any other paper in the
state.

Kind of The Victorians Who Don't Like Naughty Words vs. the Women Who Won't Put Up With It Any More.

And I haven't had so much seafood in years. Scallops right off the beach...