And You Think What?...

The magazine is cool. This is my first visit(11/16/99) and I have not quite got a grip on it. The one feature/aspect of this site that I appreciate, is the tone. Rod seems very "real"(I feel for the chastity thing man, maybe try hitting Love@aol or something ......; I've the picture and it ain't particularly scary ;>) I almost feel like this site is striving to be the NPR(National Public Radio) news site. I hope the economic model(yeh,yeh, I heard those big words and just had to regurgitate them) for your site works.

I'll Beh Bach(think Arnold - I can spell),and see if I can offer some definate comments,critiques and/or suggestions.

In any event, God Bless you folks(regardless of your personal beliefs) and keep[ up the good work.

Peace
Ed C.
ecantarell@4christians.com(a work in progress).


From Cindy R. (No City Provided), USA:

I REALLY NEED YOUR HELP ON FINDING THE ROTISSERY THAT IS SEEN ON TV PLEASE, HOPING TO BE ABLE TO FIND ONE IN MY AREA TO SAVE SHIPPING AND ALL.THANK-YOU VERY MUCH. MAY ALL YOUR DAYS BE FULL OF JESUS,LOVE,SUNSHINE,AND RAINBOWS!


From Scott D. (No City Provided), USA:

Hello Rob,

My first extented visit to your G21 web site. It loaded and displayed loud and clear. Enjoyed listening to your end of year plans in Europe; hope Yugoslavia works out, although I'm sure Belgrade doesn't just love US based journalists, even when they are really Canadian citizens. I could not help but be caught by the following comment in your website text: "God willing and the creek don't rise."

Question: What is the origin of this phrase and what was its original meaning?

Answer: Creek is not the water-containing creek or stream that immediately comes to mind, BUT the Creek Indians in the south east part of the US during the Indian resistance to settler expansion. Thus the original context was as follows, "I'll be some place, 'God willing and the Creeks (Indian Tribe) don't rise (up in a war like manner)' and prevent me from my appointment. " Oh well enough history for now. Take care and let us hear from you in Belgrade, if that is possible.

Best to you,
Scott


From Robert C. Santa Rosa, CA, USA:

hey rod--Ý

new look to your page, ...very nice.Ý

And a piece of your column flashed me back to a philisophical confrontation between leftist groups at SUNY/AB in the '60s-- This alan-ginsberg-type, beingÝquestioned on hisÝtrue values, snapped back:Ý "Hey man,ÝI'm a Marxist;ÝI brush my teeth with Arm & Hammer!" Ý

It was the same year that the university adopted as its motto: "BROKEN WINDOWS LET THE FRESH AIR IN".Ý (The latin escapes me.) Ý In any event, good holiday to you. Ý

and Be well, Ý
robert Ý


From Jim H. Columbia, MD, USA:

While celebrating thanksgiving back at my wife's homestead (Beaver Falls PA) I was please to see my nephew Jay Dickerson. Since Jay is working on his PHD, in Physics at Suny atÝ Stony Brook he very seldom leave the lab and we don't see him to often. While fighting the battle of the bulge at dinner I spends a great deal of time telling him how much I enjoyed your G 12 e-zine and how he should sign up for it. Since you were both Amherst Alumnus, the poor kid spends 15 to 20 hours a day in the lab trying to find a way to speed up data along fiber optics lines using lasers he tried to explain it to me I am still confused.

Jim H.

PS. I hope Baltimore is treating you well.


From Ed C. (No City Provided,) USA:

I like the mag.: the writers are good enough, but some thicker content would be nice(this is a wish list item, I know this would be hard on Santa's elves). Keep up the good work.

Idea:I suggest a Freedom of Information Act request be made, to get the name,address & (if it was gathered) e-mail address of anyone who has donated to NPR(national public radio) stations in the past year for possible mass mailing(Spam is food to some life forms).

Idea2:buy(ouch!) some hits for people putting in search terms of things like:"social causes","socialism","NPR","National Public Radio",get my drift. I guess I am that little voice(literal translation of my last name means little singer - do that to:)) that keeps asking;"How will they find you".

Love like you enjoy the pain, dance like you just got rythme, work like you need the money.

BE THANKFUL

P.S. Rod- any luck on the women thing? Hit the personells and think of it as rejection free learing.LOL

Dan VandeMortel Gets Quibbled....

This is a province of Great Britain we are talking about here, 68% of the people want it that way over in Northern Ireland - that's why they had a referendeum.

The only reason the "troubles" have been happening is because the Americans, YOU, are funding the terrorists.

How about us Brits funding Gadaffi? How about we tell the yanks to get out of Hawaii, or leave Long Island?

Just so you armchair critics get a fix on reality, leave us to sort out our own business, and start sorting out your own. Jeez, you've got a sex crazed (and fairly indiscriminate) convict for a president, you can't get on with half of your own people (ask the Blacks and The Hispanics if I am telling the truth) and you meddle in our problems.

Get Real, please.
Jim

And Phil Martin Gets Lectured...

I was looking through your site quite by accident really. I am a youth group leader at the local church and needed some resource for my lesson. I am a little surprised at the way you are so condemning to the church and especially Jerry Farwell and Pat Robertson. I wonder which one of those two mens hand was on the butt of that pistol that Killed Mathew Shepard. A pastor and The Church as a whole has the god given order to speak out publicly about the sin of the gay lifestyle. If that makes you uncomfortable that may be the holy spirt convicting you of the sin in your life. It is the nature of the Human being to try to hide our guilt in anger and making everyone else responsible for our choices in life. I love the gay person with the love of Jesus Christ and if you would let him come into your life he could heal you of your sin and help on the right road. By the way I was shocked and saddened that Matt was killed and the way he died was especially terrible. Unless they confess their sin and find the lord he will judge them accordingly. I can assure you that justice will be served andÝ there will be no appeal. I must warn you however that the judgement that awaits them will also be waiting for you unless you ask him to save you. Please feel free to reply if you wish. Look up John 3:16.

They Just Won't Let Wolf Alone...

Ayn Rand? You digging me with Ayn Rand? THE individualist poster child of the century? Well, at least for teenage boys. It makes me cringe when I think that people over the age of 17 really think of her as a philosopher.

(Rod, what was it, a 9th grade affair with Ms. Rand--blown off by 10th? Obviously teenagers can think for themselves and can and do make wonderful contributions to society, but philosophy and morals are not taught with any degree of seriousness in high school or college. One would have to be a seriously precocious student to be able to think outside of the classic Western Christian/individualist box. The resources are just too hard to come by.

Skepticism of Western principles is rare. You may find quibbling of degrees, but the positing of particular values is assumed. Wolf's statement that the relation to the Other is not a first principle is simply nonsense. We do not live in a vacuum. Your very existence began in an other, depended on the survivability of the other for your own survival. Your continued existence depends on the other. Denying the primacy of the subject object relationship is extraordinarily narcissistic not to mention stunningly ill conceived and simply indicative of weak observational skills. Your individualism is based, even when posited in opposition, on the primal relationship with the Other. The idea of a free individual is not, as Wolf contends, presupposed by the other--that's a conditional judgment of the Western ego complex that comes after the recognition of the subject object relationship.)

And the Joe Campbell dig? The universalist who has made us all think that the individualist Hero's Journey is THE myth? Gulp. I must admit I have a master's degree in mythology and depth psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute--home of the Joe Campbell archives and library--but luckily myths have more stories to tell than those of solipsists and of those caught in a power complex. If you are familiar with current Jungian scholarship or really just about any serious current discussion of philosophy and psychology, the ideas of object relations, of commoditization are not limited to Marxist circles. The contributions from any number of schools must be considered if your arguments are going to hold weight outside a dogmatic clique. Using Tocqueville and Voltaire is fine. But it might help your arguments if you used some contemporary thinkers as well, ones who have digested such classic material and augmented it just a bit, and ones who have a deeper well than the plugged up Fountainhead of Ayn Rand. (And the lameness of the Nazi and Communist comments . . . . Calling me a doo-doo head would've impressed me more and actually have been a more cogent argument. I mean we're all more or less full of it.) To say that individualism isn't a problem in this country is to be a PR guy for Donald Trump and every other rugged individualist in this country who built their empires on corporate policies that make a mockery of personal rights not to mention the general welfare what with their atrocious environmental records and imperialist treatment of "inferior" workers in Asia and Central America and anywhere else (I mean if they were smart they'd be slipping across the borders--show some real initiative--if they're stupid enough to live in a country that pays five cents an hour they deserve it, eh?) they can exploit the human and natural bounty for their own individual purposes (with the collusion, naturally, of governments both despotic and democratic). "It's my company; it's my land. If I want to pump every last drop of water out of the aquifer, so what?! I stole it fair and square from the Mexicans who stole it for god, gold, and country from the Indians and, by my continued ability to bribe public officials in a wholly legal way, it's my right to steal it from the future." Every major corporation in the world is headed up by such rugged individualists, ones who think their individual value is worth thousands and even millions more than the people who do the work, people who aren't privileged to have their golden parachutes when they don't meet their quotas. But don't go slagging me with a Marxist brush just because I question the unprecedented greed and venality of the oligarchy and their privileged individualism. (Though corporate welfare in this country is worth a few ironic giggles--What is socialism for the masses is merely good business for the Warbucks.) One of my ideas on testing my philosophical assumptions is to read LOTS of people who push my comfort zone. I want my tree to be shaken hard (but with ideas, not cliches) cause loyalty to a rotten limb is indicative of delusion. No one philosophy, as no one religion or no one anything, holds all the answers. But it seems we are cultural monotheists. Ideas like the primacy of individualism, universalism, and dogmatism (no matter the stripe, it's the ONE idea that matters) are accepted as a priorities. Guess what? The socialists and the libertarians are eating out of the same trough! So don't "either or" me to death.

And speaking frankly about individual privilege in this country is hardly noteworthy. You're not gonna get too much flack from a John Wayne country that's obsessed with a TV show about would-be millionaires who feel tense answering questions about the colors of an Oreo cookie. I mean, like the probable next president said: He ain't a jeopardy contestant and the country really doesn't care if he knows about other countries. It's this country he's a gonna be scammin'--uh--runnin' so give him his rightful privilege as a self-made man (grand daddies count) so he can make some real money for his own self on the board of one of those I Did It My Way corporations. Think for yourself but explore widely in the world of ideas. Don't just crib from commentators. Challenge your own ideas first. And often. Complacency of thought is a great danger regardless of the school to which you pledge your loyalty.

Oh, and it would be great if we could get Monica to actually go down on Bill in public (as opposed to public office). That would blow Regis right away in the sweeps, eh?

(It's so much fun being a critic of social critics. It's like being a Monday morning quarterback of Monday morning quarterbacks. Now if I were really serious about helping them I'd shut up and go down to the local chapter of Recovering Messiahs and empty their bedpans and do other volunteer work that actually benefits the humans which I have such an abstract love of. Naw. It's easier to write an essay than actually mingle with social critics: they're just so smelly in person.)

Bring back public masturbation! It's your right!

Rico "Do minimal harm, but dance like you mean it" Flamingo

Next in the Penalty Box: Bob Powers...

Hi!Ý Just wanted to thank you and Bob Powers for your nice review of my recent CD on Arbors.Ý

Please permit the mention of a few minor cavils:Ý 1)Ý the name of the album is Sunset Stomp, not Summer Storm;Ý 2) the author of the album notes is Ross Firestone, not Ross Tompkins, who is (was?) the pianist on the Tonight Show.Ý Ross Firestone is the author of several well-known books, including Getting Into Wine, The Book of Men, and "as-told-to" autobiographies of Gary Crosby and Elizabeth Ashley.Ý His most recent book is Swing, Swing, Swing, a biography of Benny Goodman.Ý He cannot play the piano.

Corrected or not, I am thrilled to see this nice review -- thanks again.

Larry E.


BOB POWERS RESPONDS: Hi, Ý

The record company sent me a note when the review was published about my mistaken ID of Mr. Firestone. The correction was made in the following issue. As for the misstep in the title, I have no idea how that got altered. At this late date, correcting it would seem to be fruitless. If you wish me to, however, let me know and I'll do it. Ý

Thanks for your kind words. Ý

Bob Powers
Freelance Writer & Editor
"Powerssound" music columnist, www.g21.net

The November Readership Poll... Went Over Like a Lead Balloon

Well, obviously Rod blew it because we got all of TWO (Count 'em!) two responses. Here they are:


From Diamond D., Higganum, CT, USA:

it will be a big politoeconomical fart I am partying down and avoiding large cities


From Rico Flamingo, Austin, TX, USA:

Like a computer gives a shit whether time runs backward. How do they fuckin' know we don't want to return to year 00? They'll just keep on spittin' out error messages if they have to. But they probably will just keep whirring along. I do wish the hell they'd fuck up the banking and insurance industries, though.

All in all, Y2K is just wishful thinkin', as far as I can tell, for a bunch of bloodthirsty, cracker Christians--(a religion that just CAN'T WAIT until 99.9% of their fellow creatures are burned to a fuckin' crisp for eternity--now, there's a religion of LOVE!, brothers and sisters, LOVE!--paranoia and love--sound like any families you know?--patriarchal theisms--gotta love 'em.) If it gets more morons to move to the god forsaken deserts and highlands of the West, all's the better. It'll keep haunted hills stories alive, make for more Wes Craven fodder.

And doncha just love how Microsoft's been saying they don't have no Y2K problems then send out postcards asking ya to call them for their Y2K compliant upgrades?

And speaking of counting, so when exactly was year 0? Some people are way too fuckin' serious. If you don't engage in life, with real people, you get some hairy ass ideas about the world--it becomes a lot scarier than it really is or it becomes a fantasy land of higher powers who will make it all go away. See, that's the trouble with ideals. They ain't meant for application to humans. Just try to keep fantasy and literalizing in soft areas like art and music and play. Not in your revenge taking modes like religion and politics. OK? In short, the whole thing's a bunch of horse shit. But that's life. So just call me when the bombs start fallin' so's I can drag my cooler on out into the backyard. Me, the wife, and kiddies'll be sitting in the ol' lime green lawn chairs in our skivvies. (Good tannin' weather, girls.) Light up a smoke and watch the mushrooms bloom. The universe is a very big place. I'm sure I'll find something to do with an ethereal body and a load of gamma rays.

XXXOOO
Rico

The World's Magazine & The World's Mailbox (Sheesh!)

November 24, 1999

Dear friends,

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I hope most of you are able to enjoy the day off to be with family and friends. I've always liked this holiday. I can't quite put it into words, but it does bring back a lot of memories from childhood, a time when it was not uncommon to have all your family members living in the same town. I remember being at my grandmother's and the dinner table seemed so long, stretching from the living room through another large room my grandma liked to call "the parlor." There was always snow on the ground at Thanksgiving (gone now, in our ozone depleted world), and we behaved ourselves over at the kids' table because we didn't want to mess up the big event on the following day -- going to see the "real" Santa at the Sears store on Fourth Avenue in downtown Flint.

Of course, those days are gone. The extended family is more like a diaspora now, spread from Hawaii to D.C., like most families these days. The Sears (and the Penny's, the Montgomery Ward's, the Smith-Bridgman's) is gone, as is every single store on Fourth Avenue. The real Santa? No one has seen him since (although I learned later in life that the REAL Santa was actually on the 14th floor of Hudson's in downtown Detroit).

This time of year also seems to bring out a generous spirit in people. We give money to Toys for Tots, or spend a day in the soup kitchen, or gather together old clothing to give to the poor.

This is good. But wouldn't it be nice if we were able to fix the social problems we still face so that there would be no need for a soup kitchen?

Beginning Monday in Seattle, a group of men (who own just about everything in the world) and their employees -- the various heads of state from dozens of nations -- will gather for a three-day meeting to sign a trade deal that will guarantee the rich will be not only filthy rich, but stinking filthy rich for decades to come. The group is known as the World Trade Organization and their gathering will insure that many more of you will be looking for temp work in the near future. The Third World, under the guise of development, will become just one big sweatshop. I remember visiting some of the first "free trade" American factories in Mexico nearly 15 years ago. The politicians gave us the same line of hooey back then -- "It will raise the standard of living for the Mexicans!" -- and, as we all know, 15 years later, them Mexicans are all driving around in BMWs, shopping at the Gap, swimmin' in the backyard pool, and making "playdates" with neighbor's kids to go to the video arcade.

So if you want to do something about this I encourage you to join the tens of thousands of citizens from around the world who are going to Seattle to take a stand against all this greed. Numerous protests will be held throughout the city from Monday, November 29 through Friday, December 3.

I know Seattle is a bit of a hike, so for those who can't make it, check out the many demonstrations and teach-ins taking place in towns around the country. You can get more information by clicking here (http://www.peopleforfairtrade.org). I will be in Seattle, as will Ralph Nader, Jim Hightower and an array of students, union members, religious folk, and the people formerly known as middle class.

Or if you want to do something right now, click here (http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/mai/Sign-ons/WTOStatement.htm) to sign an on-line petition against the WTO.

That's it. Enjoy the turkey (the bird, not George W.), have fun with your families, and see you at the mall.

Yours,
Michael Moore
http://www.michaelmoore.com

P.S. Eliza Minot, an associate producer on "The Awful Truth" -- and one of our favorite people in the office -- has written an incredibly moving and beautiful novel called, "The Tiny One." It has just been published by Knopf and I encourage you to check it out at your local bookstores.

And don't forget to watch the show tonight -- Crackers is back!

+++ THE PREVIOUS VOX POPULI +++ THE NEXT VOX POPULI +++

We want your feedback on this stuff. Go to the TALK BACK page and tell us what you think!

via e-mail