Photo by domenic_nwh
 
Just before Christmas I posted a mix by Stephen Grasso called “A Voodoo Christmas in South Norwood”, a compilation of non-standard Christmas fare featuring a lot of music from the West Indies. Stephen Grasso is a London-based dj, published writer and Vodou practitioner, and over on the Bang The Bore blog he is currently posting an extended essay-cum-tour of London, in weekly parts, called Smoke And Mirrors. As the name would suggest, Grasso takes in a lot of sites of ancient historical importance and magical significance - in particular around the financial district known as “the City” - and places these within a context of current social unrest and popular demonstration (although the essay was written before Occupy sprang to life). Here is a taster, from the latest chapter called ‘“The Fire Of London”, posted yesterday:

The final crossroads before leaving the City of London is the intersection of Cannon Street, Gracechurch Street, Eastcheap and King William Street, in the shadow of the Monument. Constructed between 1671 and 1677 by Sir Christopher Wren, the Monument to the Great Fire of London functions as a principal Poteau Mitan of the square mile. It is a Petro mystery, ruled by Legba La Flambeau, whose fiery presence consumes the nearby crossroads. The Monument stands 202ft high, and remains the largest free-standing stone column in the world. If it were lain flat, its tip would mark the spot where the fire began, at the site of a bakery on Pudding Lane.

The Great Fire of 1666 is one of several apocalypses that have been endured by the city. It raged for four days and consumed the entirety of the square mile, and threatened to spill over to Westminster and Southwark before it was finally brought under control. The destruction swept through 13,500 houses, 87 parish churches, 44 company halls, the Royal Exchange and St Paul’s Cathedral, among other buildings, and left around 200,000 people dispersed into the surrounding areas. The death toll from the fire is numbered at eight, which seems miraculous given the extent of the blaze, until you realise that, in Old Boys terms, the lives of the poor don’t matter and their deaths are unlikely to have been added to the tally. The fire was hot enough to melt iron, and would have reduced its victims to unrecognisable charred bones, undocumented amid the rubble. The death toll also does not include the many left destitute who would have died from poverty and exposure in the harsh winter that followed the disaster.

At the peak of the Monument is a flaming urn cast in bronze, giving the structure the aspect of a candle. Simultaneously a lamp set for the dead and a beacon of hope. Wren’s first choice for the ornament was a phoenix with wings outstretched, as a metaphor for a new London rising from the ashes of the ruined city. No free-standing pillar on the scale of the Monument had been seen before by Londoners, and it struck a cultural impact akin to that of the Empire State Building in New York, a fantastical construct ushering in a brave new world. A promise that Wren would later follow through on and surpass with his breathtaking design for the new St Paul’s Cathedral.

You can read the full article here, or if you would like to start from the beginning with part one, “All Cities Have Magic”, then go here.

 
Though he may look like Moe from The Simpsons, Max Keiser is no slouch. A former equities-broker, Max is a colorful and outspoken commentator, whose show, the Keiser Report on Russia Today, is fast becoming required viewing. Of late, he has been hitting major home runs with his astute assessments of current financial and political events.

In the latest edition, “Financial Rape, Financial Pornography”, Max discussed with political analyst, Stacy Herbert, how Goldman-Sachs has a gun to the world’s head, and how banks implement with impunity, a shadow banking system, which is used to get away with stealing money - something Herbert compared to the punishment meted out to a starving mother who when caught stealing a $5 sandwich to feed her child, was sent to prison. As Herbert pointed out, when the top 1% “commit fraud, it is a called an error, a simple accounting error. When a normal person does it, they end up in jail.”

Keiser also talked with James Howard Kunstler, about how the Occupy Movement is changing the world and what affect it will have on next year’s Presidential election. Plus Max asks if corporations are “individuals”, and if so, should they be tried, like “individuals”, and if found guilty, executed?
 

 
The Dogs of OWS.
 

 

 

 
More campaigning canines, after the jump…
 
Via Damn Cool Pictures
 

 
Bill Maher slapped down the GOP last night, for calling the Occupy Wall Street protesters “hippies”. Maher made his comments at the end of the “New Rules” section of his Real Time show:

And finally, New Rule: Republicans have to stop calling the Wall Street protesters “hippies”.  Yes, they’re peeing outdoors, and having sex in sleeping bags, or as Bristol Palin calls it, “dating”.  But they’re not hippies!

The hippies are all gone.  Woodstock was 42 years ago.  Forget the brown acid, the people who were at Woodstock are now taking the blue Viagra.  “Turn on, tune in, drop out”, refers to their hearing aids.  Wavy Gravy is 75 years old.  He’s making wavy gravy in his pants.

Maher continued by saying how he had visited the OWS in Washington DC, last Saturday and had found:

Everyone was extraordinarily well-behaved, and contrary to reports, I was not offered a single marijuana cigarette.  And I’m a little insulted.  All right, someone did give me a magic mushroom, and it did blow my mind, and I thank you, Senator McConnell.  And sorry about your eyebrows, I’m sure they’ll grow back.

Anyway, the next morning, when I woke up bloody and naked in the woods, I had a relevation… I mean, a revelation.  Of course conservatives want to make this about hippies, because they like to live in the past!  Rush Limbaugh, who really is too square to be a drug addict, said, “When the free drugs run out, when the free sex runs out, they’ll get bored and move on to something else.”

Oh that’s right, Grandpa.  Look at them, strumming their sitars and wearing dungarees.  Whatever happened to the good old days of segregation and date rape?  But I get it.  You’re bitter because we fought a culture war in the ‘60s and the Right lost.  Rick Santorum is like that Japanese soldier on the island who doesn’t know the war is over, so he’s still fighting against birth control and butt sex.

Plus, Republicans are now mostly a Southern party, and if there’s one thing Southerners don’t do well, it’s lose a war and get over it. The ideals of the youth movement became assimilated into American society.  That’s why we have gays in the military now, and pre-natal yoga classes, and tofurkey.  And that’s why Rick Santorum will never be President, and a black guy who snorted cocaine is.

Maher went on to explain how the people who are occupying locations across the US are not the counter-culture:

These people down there, they’re not the counter-culture.  They’re the culture. They don’t want free love.  They want paid employment. They don’t hate capitalism.  They hate what’s been done to it.

And they resent the Republican mantra that the market perfectly rewards the hard-working and punishes the lazy, and the poor are just jealous moochers who want a handout.  Yeah, because if there’s one group of people who hate handouts, it’s Wall Street.

Maher’s comments are apt as a breakdown of people taking part in OWS shows that while two-thirds identified themselves as under the age of 35, 13% are aged between 35-45, and 20% are over the age of 45.

50% of protesters were in full employment, 20% were part-time workers, and the remaining 30%, just under half 13.1% said they were unemployed.

This is hardly the hippies the GOP is helping the media to portray.

Transcript of Bill Maher’s commentary here.
 

 
Via Alter Net