A full-on, bubble-headed Valley Girl goes on an anti-PC rant about “the Asians” at UCLA and how she almost had an epiphany.
“Even if you’re not Asian, you really shouldn’t be on your cell phone in the library.”
Via Cynical-C
Via The Raw Story:
Police estimated that more than 100,000 people flooded the streets around the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison Saturday, making the turnout larger than any of the fledgling Tea Party’s rallies. The largest turnout for a Tea Party rally is the estimated crowd of 60,000 to 70,000 people who marked in Washington, D.C. during the group’s September 12, 2009 demonstration.
The 2009 Tea Party rally’s crowd size is also notable for the controversy that surrounded it. ABC News published a piece claiming conservative activists had told them that 1 million to 1.5 million people turned out at the rally, when the corrected number was only a fraction of that size.
Below, an amazing time lapse document of events in Madison. Comprised of 2940 photos of protesters on the square.
Of the most searched-for topics on Google that lead random people to Dangerous Minds, perhaps the single most popular is “Is Lady Gaga a member of the Illuminati?”
I kid you not, there is usually at least one person, at all times of the day or night, who is visiting us to research whether or not the world’s biggest pop star is, in fact, a member of that most secretive of secret societies. Another way way it gets phrased is “Lady Gaga” and either “Satanic conspiracy,” or “Revelations” but that’s obviously a dead giveaway of a Christian conspiracy theorist. Apparently, some people truly seem to believe that Lady Gaga figures into Bible prophecies (and it’s not just Gaga, it’s Jay-Z as well). This post is dedicated to them. It will be one of our most popular posts ever, in the long run, trust me.
Not saying that she is in the Illuminati, but if she is, Lady Gaga is certainly milking her membership for all it for all it’s worth to forward teh gayz agenda. From Joe.My.God:
The fastest-selling single in iTunes history, “Born This Way” has already sold millions of copies worldwide and has gone to #1 in more than 30 countries. Whether you’re a Gaga fan or not, you cannot deny the unprecedented impact of hundreds of millions of people singing out loud, that yes, we were born this way. Lady Gaga is pushing the movement forward in ways few could have possibly fathomed.
He’s absolutely right. That song is a wonderfully subversive, absolutely unstoppable meme. It’s a magical incantation of social engineering—it’s a spell—and Lady Gaga knows this. The nursery rhyme simplicity of the lyrics gnaw their way into your brain and don’t let go. The idea of a homophobe having that song stuck in their head all day is a pleasant notion, and you know fully well that’s happened a lot.
I think you really have to hand it to Lady Gaga. When she turned down the Target deal after they wouldn’t guarantee to her that they would shun donating to all anti-gay politicians, she was truly proving to her fan-base that she is who she says she is. It took a lot of integrity to turn down that much money. There could have been a way to “spin” it and still collect their cash. She could have played it off, if she wanted to, and yet she didn’t. The Illuminati could use more like her!
Poor kid. No really:
From the Daily News:
A Manhattan mom is suing a $19,000-a-year preschool, claiming it jeopardized her daughter’s chances of getting into an elite private school because she had to slum with younger kids.
Nicole Imprescia yanked 4-year-old Lucia from the York Avenue Preschool last fall, angry the tyke was stuck learning about shapes and colors with tots half her age - when she should have been prepping for a standardized test.
“This is about a theft where a business advertises as one thing and is actually another,” said Mathew Paulose, a lawyer for the mom.
“They’re nabbing $19,000 and making a run for it.”
Impressed by the school’s pledge to ready its young students for the ERB - a test used for admission at top private elementary schools - Imprescia enrolled her daughter at York in 2009.
Thank you Soren McCarthy, of New York City, New York!
Regardless of what you think of his music, it can’t be denied that Andrew WK gives great interviews. In fact, I would go so far as to say that he is the most articulate, erudite Wayne Campbell look-a-like in modern music. Any guest spot he’s on is worth a watch, there’s generally at least one nugget of pure wisdom in there.
I remember growing up reading interviews with bands I though were seriously cool, and how the proclamations and sound bites they would deliver regarding culture and (sometimes) politics would make them seem even cooler. Only later did I learn how much editing and re-writing goes into the process of music journalism. Oh. So they probably made it up? Not Andrew WK. No, this is how he actually talks.
There’s a bit of controversy surrounding this guy (is he who he says he is? is he just a corporate puppet?) and I have to admit that at first I was suckered into thinking he was another airhead with nothing to offer but nosebleeds and puke buckets. But alas, I was wrong. This episode of Rehersal Space is a good introduction to the Andrew WK dichotomy (onstage animal/offstage intellectual). It really gets going around 4:30, when Andrew starts talking about the physical, emotional and mental (even psychic?!) response to pop music:
This interview is how I discovered the magic of Andrew WK’s mouth and mind. I’m a big fan of Ian Svenonius (frontman of Weird War/The Make Up/Nation of Ulysses, equally as articulate as W.K. if a bit more oblique) and his Soft Focus interview series. I had already watched the episodes with Genesis P Orridge, Henry Rollins and Ian Mackaye, and thought I would give this one a whirl. Needless to say I was entranced by the wit and wisdom of WK (as was Svenonius who, not quite speechless, was genuinely impressed). WK’s seemingly off the cuff answer to “what is a party to you?” at around 19 minutes will have you picking your jaw up off the floor.
After the jump: Andrew WK gets a make-over at Bloomingdales! Andrew WK talks to Lee Scratch Perry! Andrew WK interviewed by a four year old! AND Andrew WK gives the best one word response in an interview EVER…
Richard, if you ever get the chance to interview this guy, then please do!
The man of mystery behind Christian Nightmares gives an interesting interview over email to Matthew Paul Turner of Jesus Needs New PR blog
For those of us who had to undergo a fundie detox at some point or another in our lives, the following should ring quite true:
MPT: Can you tell me a little about your childhood as it relates to faith?
CN: Hmm… as it relates to faith… I don’t know if I ever was a true believer, I was just too afraid not to believe. I was completely controlled by fear. So many of the sermons in church ended with, “If you were to walk out of here today and get hit by a car, do you know where you’d spend eternity?” I didn’t know, and it was petrifying! If they were right about this place called Hell—a place of complete and utter darkness, a never-ending lake of fire where lost souls are tortured for all eternity—then I was screwed if I was wrong. I didn’t have the guts to let my chips ride on that one, especially at such a young age. I think I tried to talk myself into believing, and I recited the Sinner’s Prayer, just to be on the safe side. But because in my gut I didn’t really believe, I was constantly doubting myself, and incredibly insecure and anxious. And then the pastor would regularly preach things like, “You say that you’re saved, but are you really saved? Did you really mean it when you asked the Lord into your heart? Are you really living for him?” It totally messed with my head. I’d think to myself, Well, I said the prayer . . . I thought that was all I had to do! I’m pretty sure I believed it in that moment . . . But what if I didn’t? I became really paranoid and terrified of death. And I must have asked Jesus into my heart thousands of times: Before I’d get into a car or on a plane (just in case we got into an accident), and every night before I’d go to bed (just in case, for some reason, I died in my sleep), to name just a few scenarios. It was crazy! But it was very real to me at the time. Needless to say, it didn’t do much to build up my confidence and self-esteem, and it shaped my personality and worldview in some pretty negative ways. It’s taken me years to reverse this, and I’m still not all the way there yet.
MPT: Did your church experiences involve any true-to-life “Christian nightmares”? Care to share a couple?
CN: There was one Good Friday, when I was about 10 or 11-years-old, where I was forced to eat a heaping tablespoon of horseradish to get a better sense of “how much Christ suffered for you on that cross!” It was presented as “the least you can do considering all Jesus did for us!” That was pretty nightmarish, and ended with me hugging a toilet bowl.
I was also petrified of The Rapture, this idea that, at any moment, the Trumpet of the Lord could sound and all of the believers would get wisped up into Heaven, but that I might get Left Behind. Not only was I really scared and depressed by the idea that most of the people I knew might suddenly vanish and I’d be left to fend for myself, but I also thought that if that happened, then I would know that it was all true after all, and that my only chance of joining my friends and family up in Heaven would be to reject the Mark of the Beast, and then probably be beheaded (we’ve all seen those movies in church, right?). I became obsessed with The Rapture, really paranoid about it. There were many times when I thought that it had happened. I’d be talking with my mom in the kitchen or something, then turn around and she’d be gone, and I’d think to my self, Oh my God, this is it—it’s happened! And I’d yell out, “Mom? MOM?!!!” Of course, she’d just gone downstairs to fold laundry or something . . . I can laugh about it now, but I didn’t then.
Read the entire interview at Jesus Needs New PR.
Before writing her revolutionary feminist text The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer tried her hand at becoming a TV personality. In 1967, she briefly appeared alongside Michael Palin and future Goodies, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie in Twice a Fortnight. She then co-hosted the comedy series Nice Time in 1968, with DJ Kenny Everett and Jonathan Routh. Alas, neither made her a star.
In 1968, Greer also starred in this odd little film, Darling, Do You Love Me?, written and directed by Martin Sharp. In it, Germaine played an over-bearing, vampish female, who demands of a rather sappy, little male, “Darling, do you love me?” After much shaking, cajoling and strangulation from Greer, the man eventually says, “I love you,” and dies.
What are we to make of this? How love makes us needy? Or, perhaps, the old adage, if at first you don’t succeed..? For Greer did try and try again, until writing her landmark book. No more TV comedy after that, though she did pop-up in George (007) Lazenby’s 1971 movie, The Universal Soldier. One can only wonder what would have happened if Nice Time had been a hit.
With thanks to Ewan Morrison
Courtesy of the brand new Splendour label out of Oslo, Norway comes this new split 12” available now for free streaming or purchasing via iTunes. The limited vinyl edition arrives next month at your favorite emporium.
Owsley “Bear” Stanley the 1960s counter-culture figure, who “flooded the flower power scene with LSD and was an early benefactor of the Grateful Dead” has died in a car crash in his adopted home country of Australia on Sunday, his family have said. He was 76. The National Post reports that Owsley was:
..the renegade grandson of a former governor of Kentucky, Stanley helped lay the foundation for the psychedelic era by producing more than a million doses of LSD at his labs in San Francisco’s Bay Area.
“He made acid so pure and wonderful that people like Jimi Hendrix wrote hit songs about it and others named their band in its honor,” former rock ‘n’ roll tour manager Sam Cutler wrote in his 2008 memoirs “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
Hendrix’s song “Purple Haze” was reputedly inspired by a batch of Stanley’s product, though the guitarist denied any drug link. The ear-splitting blues-psychedelic combo Blue Cheer took its named from another batch.
Stanley briefly managed the Grateful Dead, and oversaw every aspect of their live sound at a time when little thought was given to amplification in public venues. His tape recordings of Dead concerts were turned into live albums.
The Dead wrote about him in their song “Alice D. Millionaire” after a 1967 arrest prompted a newspaper to describe Stanley as an “LSD millionaire.” Steely Dan’s 1976 single “Kid Charlemagne” was loosely inspired by Stanley’s exploits.
According to a 2007 profile in the San Francisco Chronicle, Stanley started cooking LSD after discovering the recipe in a chemistry journal at the University of California, Berkeley.
The police raided his first lab in 1966, but Stanley successfully sued for the return of his equipment. After a marijuana bust in 1970, he went to prison for two years.
“I wound up doing time for something I should have been rewarded for,” he told the Chronicle’s Joel Selvin. “What I did was a community service, the way I look at it. I was punished for political reasons. Absolutely meaningless. Was I a criminal? No. I was a good member of society. Only my society and the one making the laws are different.”
He emigrated to the tropical Australian state of Queensland in the early 1980s, apparently fearful of a new ice age, and sold enamel sculptures on the Internet. He lost one of his vocal cords to cancer.
Stanley was born Augustus Owsley Stanley III in Kentucky, a state governed by his namesake grandfather from 1915 to 1919. He served in the U.S. Air Force for 18 months, studied ballet in Los Angeles, and then enrolled at UC Berkeley. In addition to being an LSD advocate, he adhered to an all-meat diet.
A statement released by Cutler on behalf of Stanley’s family said the car crash occurred near his home in far north Queensland. He is survived by his wife Sheila, four children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Here is a rare interview with Bear Owsley by Bruce Eisner .
