Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Old Comedy still funny

Who is old enough to remember Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris? Who can ever forget their comedy? Just watch and see what was hilarious in the 50s and is still hilarious today!

YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS





Monday, February 18, 2013

Zeitgeist. Real or just real?

If you want to watch contrived fiction, go to the theater for your dose of mindless entertainment or propaganda where the good guys always win or love blossoms in the end. Or settle into your sofa to watch TV about mind sinking people like the Kardashians, or swamp guys or censored sitcoms. Or baseball. Make popcorn. But don't think.

Yet if you lean to wondering about what your world is coming to, you just might want to take the time to see a film by Peter Joseph, called Zeitgeist available free to view on YouTube. Maybe it'll make you think. Something which, after seeing this movie, you might consider dangerous. But it just might prod you into asking questions. 


 

The movie by Peter Joseph is going around a lot right now. I watched it. Some of it replicates the film, Loose Change, a documentary about 9/11 also freely available on the web. (Loose Change is the number one viewed film on YouTube, with Zeitgeist number two.) And if Zeitgeist makes you ask one question, or do your own research into that question, to seek your own answer, it can only be good.

Zeitgeist is a great word. It seems to imply deep philosophical thinking, as if Nietzsche was involved or something. And we look for some Freudian explanation. Zeitgeist seems to emerge from a today-time of turmoil or despair in humanity. Zeitgeist means a spirit of the age and is the current intellectual fashion or dominant school of thought among a certain demographic that typifies and influences the culture of a particular period in time. The time is now. 
But you might even have to be brave to watch this one, the good guys aren't winning, it is not mindless entertainment, no screaming teenagers here, no comforting conclusion, but perhaps it is mindful entertainment that challenges your beliefs. Instigates a world consciousness. Forces you to think. 
If you can do that, be brave and watch. 


You might also watch this interview with Peter Joseph, who is a thinker about society in the mode of Julian Assange with an innate brilliance.Peter Joseph interview

 

Monday, February 11, 2013

Coincidence or Conspiracy?

Pope Benedict XVI is resigning. Citing age and tiredness for his inability to continue with the stress of the work. He will be the first Pope to step down in 600 years. Popes usually die on the job ... er ... somehow or other. 
Bye-bye flock

Then they do the smoke thing up there and all hail a new pope. Black smoke indicates a failed ballot. White to say the choice is made. (Would it be reversed if a black Pope was chosen?)


We are sorta wondering though .... you've seen the present TV advertising campaign across North America, pleading with Catholics to 'come home'. Is the Catholic religion suffering a loss of Christians? Is the 10% contribution not enough anymore? Perhaps the Vatican is facing a cash-crunch too, like Italy, Spain and Greece, and they want that cash base to come home again? Did Pope Benedict fail his job evaluation? 
Did the Cardinals make him an offer he couldn't refuse? Did Marlon Brando as a hologram make an ominous appearance? Or worse, Tony Soprano, aka James Gandolfini. The Pope said he will retire to his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo in the hills outside of Rome. OMG is he sending us a signal? 

Ciao! I am ready!

The Roman Catholic world has plunged into intense speculation about his successor. Maybe they need strong management at the top. But from who? Perhaps someone who would bring the papacy into the 21st century?


The candidates will be surfacing soon. 

Friday, February 01, 2013

Are we against everything?

Why does it seem so?
It's a trust issue isn't it? We get this spin from the media as a constant barrage of information accusing us, yes we the public, of being negative to progress. Mostly I am talking about the pipeline issues before us right now. We should be able to rely on the media to inform us without an agenda. 
Yet the people I talk to feel our so-called mainstream media is misinforming us and even disinforming us, because their owners are simply part of the present cadre of shareholders and stakeholders who stand to gain personally from the transactions proposed.

I see that Enbridge has been called back to the US congress to account for more damage in the Kalamazoo River oil spill. Because that raw bitumen heavy oil sinks to the bottom of a river or ocean, and could continue to pollute for a century. Not seen from the clear surface but still there below, sticking to the rocks and river bottom. Waterweed flora unable to grow and the whole food chain is permanently affected.

I never see our reporters, better called commentators these days, asking questions that are considered murmurs of the alternate press like the Georgia Straight. 
Like why does Enbridge have to set up a separate company for their new pipeline? Is it an insurance issue? Obviously a liability issue. If the problem gets too big, just walk away and let the government of BC clean up the trillion dollar mess? Translate that as you and me folks. 
And don't forget that Exxon has still not paid for their total cleanup or fines of the Valdez spill in 1989! And even so just had the 2.9 billion punitive damage award reduced! These guys have payroll lawyers doing nothing but delaying and lobbying.
What insurance would any separate company transporting oil across BC have to have? And someone needs to ask Enbridge if their responsibility ends at the terminal? Then we need someone to ask what insurance the tanker company will have to navigate within our waters. Is any insurance enough?

We hear threats from our Premier that all will be right or it won't go ahead, but she knows full well that Prime Minister Harper will over-rule her in an instant as looking after the interest of Canada. 
The idea of shipping that heavy crude to existing refineries in Eastern Canada is laughed at as impossible. As is building a new refinery in Alberta. Too expensive, no quick return. Investors in Canada want to spend the dividends on Saturday night at the club. So is the thought of not mixing any chemical with the crude to pipe it, but instead just shipping the dry bitumen in rail cars! Any talk like that probably brings a lawyer out of the dark to ask the reporter, "How can we make you see our point of view?"  

So we are back to Enbridge saying their new pipeline will bring in 1.9 billion dollars over a 30 year period to BC and employ 200 people. And those are just the greasy drippings, folks. The recent exasperated voice of the BC film industry shouts that over the last 30 years they have brought in 27.2 billion dollars, employed 85,000 people and didn't spill oil on anything! Where is our sense of benefit for the people?

So we have a steady media spin about this pipeline getting our product to market. Never saying it is a Chinese market. And Kinder-Morgan wanting a similar program to double their input to Burnaby. And amid all the furor in our minds, we get little or no help from the newspaper reporters, the TV commentators, or anyone other than the few independent small voices. Home bloggers digging painfully for every tidbit. Most of them labelled as naysayers against the establishment.

The problem is, that establishment screws the people regularly for the benefit of the few shareholders. That is their track record. But we have the right to demand truth from corporations. When we get slick but distorted images of their proposals, omission of facts and downright lies about their plans, we ARE against them. We have no other direction than to oppose and scream bloody murder.

It is time we stopped calling the ragged protesters, the tree huggers, the long hairs and pot smokers the enemy, and realized who the real enemy is. We are not against everything, we are simply FOR honesty and integrity, disappearing attributes in the world today. Don't forget that the EPA in the States was brought about by those 1960s Hippies with daisies in their hair.

Anarchy is described as an absence of government or a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority. 
But anarchy doesn't have to be scary street people with bandana masks and black flags, it can also be pinstriped suits and silk ties over-ruling an UNdue diligence government, working within an absence of government, a carefully constructed political disorder.

Just as scary for your future.