WWII: D-Day’s other story

Well, actually it was after D-Day, when the Allies recaptured Paris from the Germans. Sex in the city: Sex in the streets, rape, sex on the sidewalks, more rape, murder, sex in the parks, plunder. Rape. Sex: “What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in WWII France” (Mary Louise Roberts). It ain’t a pretty picture. There’s also another book out which, though I haven’t read it yet, must surely overlap with the one above. It’s called “The Deserters,” chronicling the violent terror and crime spree of some 50,000 American deserters after France, in particular Paris, was “liberated.” There’s a very recent article on it here. The American commanders tried to hide all this from the American and British public, but it’s gradually coming out. By the way, don’t  forget to read another meticulously researched eye-opener, this one about what really led up to the attack on Pearl Harbor: “Day of Deceit.” The more I read of actual American history the more I realize the official presentation we’ve mostly been handed is myth, myth upon myth, lie upon lie.

Need your American war crime stories a little more up to date? Try “Kill Anything that Moves” by Nick Turse.

Note: here’s an article about warnings to WW2 soldiers about STDs.

The whites of ancient China

There’s a ton of these historical stories on Youtube; National Geographic also had a special on this.

Mark Twain unleashed

“…Whether anguishing over American military interventions abroad or delivering jabs at Wall Street tycoons, this Twain is strikingly contemporary. Though the autobiography also contains its share of homespun tales, some of its observations about American life are so acerbic — at one point Twain refers to American soldiers as “uniformed assassins” — that his heirs and editors, as well as the writer himself, feared they would damage his reputation if not withheld…” –From a review of the unexpurgated autobiography of Mark Twain. Here (NY Times).

Related: The unexpurgated new edition of the Autobiography selling very well indeed. In fact, to quote the article, it’s “flying off the shelves.” Here (NY Times)

The view from the reservation

Alex Jones video Channel

Che, you know, that cool-looking guy in the beret on the T-shirt…

“During his Bolivian “guerrilla” campaign, Che split his forces whereupon they got hopelessly lost and bumbled around, half-starved, half-clothed and half-shod, without any contact with each other for 6 months before being wiped out. They …seemed incapable of applying a compass reading to a map. They spent much of the time walking in circles and were usually within a mile of each other. During this blundering they often engaged in ferocious firefights against each other…” [see link below]

And let’s not forget another endearing aspect of the good doctor, evidently honed in his delightful youth: “…Even as a youth, Ernesto Guevara’s writings revealed a serious mental illness [from Ernesto Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries]. “My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any vencido [the defeated , the surrendered] that falls in my hands!” — Read full account in this article (Big Peace)

Titanic misunderstanding?

”Crucially, the two steering systems were the complete opposite of one another. So a command to turn ‘hard a-starboard’ meant turn the wheel right under one system and left under the other…” Here (Daily Mail)

“The atomic cameramen”

There were those who thought about the bomb, including Albert Einstein, those who managed the Manhattan Project, people like Robert Oppenheimer, those who actually built the bomb, too numerous to list, and then there were those who filmed the big bangs: the atomic cameramen. There aren’t many left. Read story here (NY Times). By the way, don’t forget to check out this bestseller: How to photograph an atomic bomb (also get an atomic cameraman T-shirt). Where to buy: At the Atomic Store (where else).

Relax…

Lie back and relax, ninnies, with the first color film; after all, there are at least a few weeks left till the economic apocalypse ( I forget, considereing the gravity implied by such a word, should I capitalize apocalypse?)

I would’ve loved to have lived in the 1950s

Ah, the fifties.

“Mom, I think I see one of those new hamburger places they’re talking about.”

“You mean, McDonald’s, dear?”…

Yeap”…

OK, we can get a burger for Fido too.”

“Oh, goody.”

“Would you like that, Fido, huh boy?”

“Ruff…ruff.”

…And later, on the flight home…

“Gee whiz, don’t you just love living in the fifties, Mom?”

“Every minute of it, dear.”

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While some of us were led to believe the fifties, defying the laws of optical physics, was in monochrome only, this of course turned out not to have been the case.

800,000 years ago…

Some 800, 000 years ago “early man butchered and ate the brains of children as part of everyday diet“.

800,000 thousand years ago is a long time but, in the depths of our reptiallian complex, not much has essentailly changed. Human animalism sits there like a ferocious rabid animal, though usually kept in check by long held civilizing memes. There have been, throughout history, tribal cannibals (fellow human beings) that have made meals of  their enemies (and sometimes friends and relatives).  Every once in awhile we read of gruesome cannibalistic seriel killers. Not long ago there was  South American soccer team whose plane had crashed in the Andes. Left without food they eventually ate the members onboard who had been killed in the initial  impact or who had died from injuries.

Intransigence during the early 20th century

“We are not afraid to maul a black man over the head if he dares to vote, but we can’t treat women, even black women, that way. No, we’ll allow no woman suffrage.”–a Mississippi man back when…  Here.

Ladies and gentlemen, directly from the early sixties in stereo–it’s the Faith Tones

Jesus Use Me–from the decade that gave us the official beginning of the end of Christianity. I’d love to listen to some of this old vinyl but I’m afraid it could be the audio version of the Spanish Inquisition (and you know how unpleasant that was)….wait a minute, on second thought diid that title –Jesus use me– mean, well, take my body lord and use it, baby, or am I writing too much into that line? At least bless me if I’m wrong.

Yeah, they knew (Oh yeahhhhh)

“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” President Woodrow Wilson.

“The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise their power from behind the scenes.” — Justice Felix Frankfurter (US Supreme Court).

Change of heart syndrome

The Maldives island republic in the Indian Ocean where it is illegal NOT to be Muslim…so when a Maldivian named Mohamed Nazim renounced Islam during a lecture, he “was attacked by members of the audience, then led off under arrest by police. A few days later it was reported that he’d had a change of heart while in police custody and publicly apologized for his atheistic apostasy…” Of course we can only guess why he had a change of heart (but I think we get the picture). Here.

Overrated?

OK the video tease isn’t that great but the book (Overrated: The 50 Most Overhyped Things in History, by Mark Juddery) referenced here certainly looks pretty interesting.

The author’s blog on the subject.

Is baseball overrated? Now I love baseball but the author makes a case for its overratedness here.

WW2 Japanese war crimes (in the name of the corporation)

”Lester Tenney entered World War II as a strapping 21-year-old, weight 180 pounds. By the time he emerged from Japanese captivity in 1945, he was a shattered, emaciated cripple. His left arm and shoulder were partly paralyzed due to an accident in a coal mine where he’d been sent as a slave laborer. His overseers there — civilian employees of the Mitsui Corp., not members of the Imperial Army — had knocked out his teeth in repeated beatings with hammers and pickaxes. At war’s end, he weighed in at 98 pounds. It took him a year in U.S. Army hospitals to regain something like a semblance of his old well-being…” Here.

Battle flag of the Banana Republic

General Custer’s original battle flag at Little Big Horn

Fat Man and the POWs

“…At around midday I had finally plucked up the courage to undertake my most hateful task  -  emptying the latrine cans on to the Japanese officers’ tomato plants. It always made my stomach turn but I did have to marvel at the spectacular effect it produced in the plants, which boasted tomatoes the size of apples… I was taking care to avoid being splashed when there came a tremendous clap of thunder from the direction of Nagasaki [Fat Man]. Then moments later, a sudden gust of hot air like a giant hairdryer blasted into me, knocking my shrunken frame sideways. Later, the other prisoners came back from their day at a nearby factory and began to talk of a massive bomb raid. No one had any concrete information. We just knew that something big had happened down in Nagasaki…” Here.

Edward– rubber tipped– Scissorhands

What might happen if the Politically Correct crowd had its way and could remedy those prePC old movies and photos? Well, these photos give you an idea. There’s some more here.

Edward Scissorhands made safer; probably a warning label would be attached: Do Not Remove Rubber Tips

The photo below was actually doctored to present  the usually cigar chomping Winston Churchill as a non smoker to avoid offense:

Jolie as Cleo?–you gotta be kiddin’

Here we go again. Can you believe Angelina Jolie is set to play Cleopatra in a new movie of Egypt’s queen (“Queen of the Nile”).  Hollywood hasn’t grown up yet. Wasn’t it bad enough the incredibly beautiful Elizabeth Taylor played that role. If you’ve ever read about the real Cleopatra you know she surely approached hag status, at least as far as her mug was concerned (which is what we’re talking about here; I’m still doing all night research on her cleavage),  though evidently one with a seductive smile (or something). The angular faced Anjelica Huston or even homely Lady Gaga (without the bleach) would’ve been a more accurate casting. See another angle on this story here.

NOT

Angelina Jolie in a previous queeenly role: fulfilling Hollywood’s beauty myth/fantasy to the nth degree

NOT

Liz Taylor in 1963 as Cleo (with a bosom to die for), another actress fulfilling the beauty myth/fantasy to the nth degree (I know, makes you want to shrug off historical accuracy)

THE REAL THING (?)

Ancient coins depicting Cleo, NOT fulfilling the beauty myth/fantasy to the nth degree (if you were Antony would you run yourself through with a sowrd for this woman?)

One account of her, in fact called “Cleopatra Was No Liz Taylor,” in the book An Underground Education, describes her this way, quoting Plutarch:

“Her beauty was by no means flawless [he's being very diplomatic here]…but anyone [and here's where that seductive smile or something comes in]“but anyone listening to her but a moment sensed her irresitible charm…her voice was beguilingly rich and sweet [I'm already getting turned on] and she used her tongue like a many stringed musical instrument [mercy, please].” *

*About that tongue…Richard Zacks (Underground Ed) relates a rumor of the time: “Rumors spread about…uses to which Cleo put her tongue, even a heroic night of servicing one hundred noblemen.” Now that’s talent (if true).

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Update: Some history scholars say depictions of Cleopatra by white actresses, as well as images of her in the public mind (aside from the beauty issue) are inaccurate; they maintain that Cleopatra was not white looking. Tht sounds, on the face of it, a reasonable assumption. However, if you take into consideration recent  DNA  evidence from another Egyptian ruler, King Tut, the accusation may itself be inaccurate. See too King Tut unwrapped.

Enter the white worm

Worst worm in the world

After Helen Thomas’ tirade about how the “Jews should get the hell of Israel” Keith Olbermann (supreme paternalist) finally had to take a stand, and well, he did but it was a tirade against Rabbi David Nessenoff, the one who recorded Thomas’ infamous little bluster. Turns out Nessenoff–and this of course gives him Olbermann’s worst person in the world designation (wish I could get one of them)–”doesn’t have clean hands.”  It seems Neissenoff once posted a humorous weather report video of himself on his web site delivering it “in a really bad Hispanic dialect that is flatly racist.” Keith knows every nuance of racist dialect when he hears one (excluding of course deliberately bad German or Russian accents made fun of so often or an black or Hispanic mocked “upper middle class white person’s” English accent–and pity the poor Valley Girl “dialect”).

A lot of us free speech advocates (a dying breed) don’t particularly care or are not offended by a 200 year old’s misguided historical opinion (and that should have been the topic of criticism), but if  Olbermann is going to sit there with his stone-faced morally-outraged mug and contrast her comment with, at worst, some rabbi’s clumsy (deliberate or otherwise) Hispanic dialect shouldn’t at least Old Helen point to the bigger indicator number on the offense meter?

By the way, I’m sure if, instead of a  rabbi, the interviewer had been an islamic imam, Helen Thomas would have been his worst person in the world for that night; or maybe he would’ve simply skipped the entire segment.

The historical role of the social/political cartoonist

From Ken Burns’ 1999 documentary.

Question: did Henry Ford ever try passing the Koolaid?

Heny Ford’s failed human engineering project in the jungle. Now this book looks interesting. My wholly presumptive opinion is that this, at least in a very loose sense (grotesque idealism),  was Jonestown on the assembly line.

“…So he set off for the Amazon, armed with hubris, spite, madness, vision, utopianism and contempt for expertise. He resolved not merely to establish a rubber plantation in the heart of the jungle, but rather to establish a small, perfect midwestern town in the middle of the Amazon, a place where Fordism and its model villages, squeaky-clean abstinence, freedom from trade unionism, and emphasis of turning industrial workers into avid consumers of industrial goods would reign supreme….” Here.

War without water is hell

We learn that what becomes more dangerous than anything at this point is the lack of water. Nobody has water in their canteens, damnit. They get so desperate that one Marine lifts the pancho covering the body of a dead Marine and goes for his canteen. It’s empty. In a bit of a lull, you hear a Marine yell, “I found a water hole!” It was a water hole all right, but they soon find that the Japanese had poisoned the water. “We need water!” they cry. Read more here about Tom Hank’s “Pacific.”

The girl on the grassy knoll

New President Kennedy assassination film not included in the Warren Commission Report:

Soviet food memoir (from the seventies)

“…Ms. Gorokhova’s book is its own trembling mountain of crumbs. That is, it’s slight — not quite a whole meal — but endearing, a collection of well-sculptured memories about the deprivations and joys of her childhood in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). It’s a book about many things, notably class, politics, identity and sex, but one that circles around as often as not to the author’s rumbling stomach. It reminds you that the best food writing is frequently about scarcity, not abundance…” Here.

Paraphrasing now, is Nancy Pelosi the most powerful woman since Xena the Warrior princess?

Well, at least, “Most powerful woman in American history?” (quoting Diane Sawyer of ABC news). I’ve never cared for Pelosi but she sure looks hot in that leasther skirt and those boots. And that sword really turns me on …sorry, it’s just that I have a fervid fetish for dominant female Speakers in leather hot pants.

Obama’s health care warrior princess.

Back to the future…

Remember reading about the 1960′s Milgram experiment? It’s baaaaaaack…but now it’s a game show.

“With a glamorous hostess, a roaring crowd and an enthusiastic group of contestants, it has all the trappings of a traditional television quiz show. But fake game show Zone Xtreme – which airs in France today – has a very sinister twist. Instead of taking part in innocent contests, participants are ordered to deliver near fatal electric shocks to their rivals. Astonishingly, 81 per cent of people who took part were persuaded to dole out increasing shocks to ‘victims’, despite their howls of pain…” Here.

“Frau, komm”

Red Army in Berlin 1945 (May- June): “When the soldiers came to the building, asking for girls, the older women called out: ‘Where’s little Gabi?’ and pulled her out from underneath the table…” Here.

Also on this subject of the horrors of the Red Army there is of course the  diary A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in a Conquered City by Anonymous. There is also a movie version.

Excerpt from the book*: “No sooner was I back upstairs then the concierge’s girl…came running in for the second time. More men in the basement. Now they’re after the baker’s wife…”

“Woman in Berlin” trailer

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*This book was originally published in 1953 in Germany but the country was in no mood for war memoirs, especially of this kind so it fell into obscurity. It was over a half century later that it was republished, this time in its entirety), to international acclaim.

Titanic VS Lusitania

“…When the Titanic sank, the safety of women and children came first. But when the Lusitania went down three years later, it was a case of survival of the fittest. A painstaking analysis of passenger data from the two vessels revealed that captain’s orders to allow women and children off first were adhered to when the Titanic hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage on April 14, 1912.  But when the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland three years later, it was a case of every man for himself.  More precisely, men and women aged between 16 and 35 were most likely to push their way to safety, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports. The difference in behaviour, the researchers believe, lies not in who was on the ships, but how quickly they went down…” Story here.

American Dream myth

Is it time to replace the “American Dream” myth with reality? By Jove, I think it is (enter Jeremy Rifkin): “…Although American history is peppered with lamentations about the souring of the dream, the criticism never extends to the assumptions that underlie the dream, but only to political, economic and social forces that thwart its realization. To suggest that the dream itself is misguided, outdated, and even damaging to the American psyche, would be considered almost treasonous. Yet, I would like to suggest just that…”

A cute little snapshot from our colonial past

During a winter in 1697 Hannah Duston of Massachusetts and her family were attacked by indians. After they brutally killed her infant son they dragged her to their indian camp some fifteen days distance. Along with a few other prisoners they had captured they told them they would probably be tortured and then used for target practice by hatchet-throwing young warriors. At midnight Duston and another woman and a young boy gathered the hatchets from the dozing indians and, quoting now from the excellent Underground Education by Richard Zachs, “killed ten of their twelve Indian guards. The captives fled but then decided to return and take the scalps…of two Indian men, two women and six children.” After their escape by canoe the General Court of Massachusetts awarded them £50 for the bounty.

Lone woman faces mid-East brigands (but that was in the 1840s)

From a rather erudite blog about books, though this entry is from 2004: “…On another occasion, Lady H was with some other members of a tribe and was told… that if she was found in their company, the whole group would be killed by a rival tribe. Lady H immediately broke apart from her companions, and set off across the desert alone. Sure enough, she was soon being chased by a large band of brigands. Recognising that she could not escape, Lady H turned to face them, and with a roar of defiance yelled out, ‘Avaunt!’ [meaning] ‘Go away!’ Or ‘To hell with the lot of you!’ Or perhaps something even ruder. The band of brigands was so impressed by this display of courage that they decided not to kill her after all, and roared their approval in reply, firing their weapons into the sky instead of at her…” Here (article refers to an early nineteenth century book–still in print in various editions (inc. the Kindle)– by Alexander Kinglake, Eothen, which happened to be a favorite of  Winston Churchill).

The audacity of Emperors

Well, let’s hope America’s Imperial Presidency never reaches this state of audacity:

“Taking a pee in ancient Rome was not without its dangers. Under Tiberius, peeing while wearing a ring (or holding a coin) with the Emperor’s face on it was a capital offense…” Zack’s “Underground Education”.

A couple of half-baked thoughts…

Remember, half-baked is at least a step up from raw.

*With all the roundabout sympathy the Liberal media are showing the Fort Hood jihad shooter I wonder if, when he’s out of the hospital, he’ll be invited to the White House for a beer summit? Just a thought.

*A charge of racism can and in fact often is predicated on just about anything. All one has to do is take an utterance (calling for lower taxes, opposing to excess immigration, saying to a black president you lie, etc–you know the routine), then shifting the context to something expedient, as when Jesse Jackson accused certain senators of nazism because they were calling for reducing the tax burden or when a certain black politician called an astronomer racist for talking about a black hole. So maybe we should look back at what racism really has been: Here (caution, contains a slideshow of graphic content).

*Last word on Fort Hood: FLASH: powers that be have it all sewn up…The multiculturalists will now spread their splash of diversity-at-all-costs rhetoric over this pussoozing wound like a warm cozy blanket. There, isn’t that lovely, they will say as soothingly, as softly as a whisper in the ear.

Men who stare at goats: psychic or psycho?

I’ve read the book (The Men Who Stare At Goats) and now it’s coming out as a movie (demonstrates the power of my psychic make-it-happen ability).

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Speaking of  the delusional this is great–How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World.

The art of lying

Lying  through inference. In this article/interview, replete with many examples, Errol Morris tells us about Seven Lies About Lying. …You see, he says, taking an example from the Bible, “They take his coat, rip it, smear it with blood, and show it to Jacob. They don’t tell Jacob that Joseph was eaten by a wild beast; Jacob makes the false inference himself. My theory is that deceit does not require language. To lie, you have to make a statement. You have to say something in words for it to be a lie. But deceit only requires misdirection. All it requires is the intent to have someone think something that is different from what you believe…”

“Case of the inappropriate alarm clock”

It sounds like the title of a Perry Mason episode, but it’s really just another account of the continuing saga of that dreaded human invention–manipulation: “…It was the 1936 presidential election. The issues would be familiar to today’s voters. Roosevelt, the eastern Democrat, arguing for the intervention of government in the economy, and Alf Landon, the midwestern Republican, arguing for a laissez-faire approach free of government controls and intervention. Roosevelt, campaigning for a second term, was on a train (“the Dustbowl Special”) headed towards the Dakota badlands. Everything was in place for a series of photo opportunities and news stories that would cast his efforts to fight the drought in the best possible light. But, unknown to F.D.R., a controversy was brewing, a controversy involving photography…” from a N.Y. Times’ seven part series here.

“Native Americans”–as bad as whites

Yeah, I know they’re teaching in schools that Christopher Columbus was a Racist, Raper, Drunk and Heroin Addict, Global Warmist and Murderer (equipped with a magical Euro-Racist Global Warming weapon) . But did you know the indians were even worse, well at least as bad as the whites?

“…Locked in the sweet embrace of balmy sleep, all unconscious of danger, the little band of emigrants were attacked about daybreak the next morning by the Indians, who creeping close to camp, fired upon their unsuspecting victims, killing some and wounding others. A heart rending scene ensued. Young Russell was shot through both hips and was unable to attempt escape. As the Indians would run up with their knives to stab him he would seize the naked blades with his hands and thus had them badly mangled and was finally tortured in a most barbaric manner. Young Boone was also shot through his hips, breaking them both and rendering him helpless. He recognized among the Indians Big Jim, a Shawnee warrior, who had often shared the hospitality of his father’s house. His unusually high cheek bones and broad face, with a singularly peculiar chin, rendered it almost impossible for anyone who had ever known him to fail instantly to recognize his remarkable features. James Boone implored him by name to spare his life, but former friendship, past favors, nor present misfortunes made any sensible impressions on the adamantine heart of the blood thirsty warrior. The Indians tortured young Boone by pulling out his toe and finger nails when he besought Jim at once to put him out of his misery. At the same time young Russell was suffering similar tortures, when Boone remarked to him that he presumed his parents, brothers and sisters were all killed by the Indians. At length both young sufferers were severely stabbed and probably tomahawked when death like an angel of mercy came to their relief. Both the Mendenhalls and young Drake were among the slain, one of whom, at the time ran off and was neither found nor heard of at that period, but many years after some of the family of Mr. John Thorpe, residing nearby, found the bones of a man between two high ledges of rocks about an eighth of a mile above the defeated camp, which was supposed to have been those of the missing man, who had probably been mortally wounded in the attack, fled as far as he could, and crawled between the ledges and died. The Negro Adam fortunately escaped unhurt, hid himself in some driftwood on the bank of the creek close at hand and was an unwilling spectator of the painful scene enacted at the camp. Crabtree although wounded, also effected his escape and first reached the settlement, while Adam, getting lost, was eleven days making his way to the frontier inhabitants. The other Negro Charles, older and less active than Adam was taken prisoner by the Indians who carried him off with the horses and every other article they esteemed of value. When they had gone about 40 miles, getting into a dispute about the ownership of the Negro, the leader of the party put an end to the quarrel by tomahawking the poor captive…” Here.

Same place, different tech

At some point in the future the computer as we know it now will be as obsolete as composing on a rock with a chisel (like Fred Flintsone did). Our very minds will be chip-implanted; maybe DNA components will be wirelessly at our disposal. Maybe someday all the world’s knowledge will be contained in every fetus…

Mark Twain once wrote of that incredible device, the type machine… “I have dictated to a typewriter before–but not autobiography. Between that experience and the present one there lies a mighty gap– more than thirty years! It is sort of lifetime. In that wide interval much has happened–to the type-machine as well as to the rest of us. At the beginning of that interval a type-machine was a curiosity. The person who owned one was a curiosity, too. But now it is the other way about: the person who doesn’t own one is a curiosity. I saw a type-machine for the first time in–what year? I suppose it was 1873…” 1904. VILLA QUARTO, FLORENCE, JANUARY…(here)

Where exactly is native America?

The history of the human race is the history of conquest and defeat; no group of whatever race is exempt.

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Related: Here’s a post at News Real on this very subject concerning the myth of the noble savage.

That ol’ Neil Young song…

Ever hear that Neil Young song about Spanish conquistadors, the one called “Cortez the Killer“? It’s about how the Aztecs lived in a kind of paradise until Cortez and his 150 man army virtually annihilated that “glorious kingdom” in what is now Mexico.

Here’s one of the pivotal lines, lamenting the arrival of the Conquistadores, before which  “Hate was just a legend and war was never known.”

As with most propaganda–and Young’s song was merely a symtom of  long standing propaganda saturated history lessons–the stuff longstanding myths are made of– that still predominate today–it is a concoction of half truths, and in most cases no truth at all. Look at this recent article by historian Hugh Thompson.

“…When the recently excavated pyramid whose finds provide the centrepiece of the British Museum show was first inaugurated in 1484, there were prisoners lined up for sacrifice stretching in all directions as far as the eye could see. Some estimate that 20,000 victims were killed over four days. The actual reign of the Aztecs was relatively short. They dominated the centre of Mexico properly for less than a hundred years before Cortés’s arrival. Driven by a greed equal to anything the Spaniards were to reveal later, they had mercilessly conquered neighbouring tribes under the direction of emperors who worked closely with priests — indeed some emperors, like Moctezuma, had previously been head priests…The smell and stench of blood at such mass ceremonies must have been nauseous. While the heart itself would have been burnt, each skull was collected on a rack; the rest of the body was flung down the steps of the pyramid, to be eaten later with chilli sauce by nobles or favoured warriors.” Article here.

The quote below is from another article, this one from the Daily Mail commenting on a recent London exhibition of  Aztec civilization.

“..Cortes and his men as they reached the precise geometric centre of the city, a huge plaza containing the Great Temple. From a platform high up on this stone pyramid ran steep flights of wide steps. The horror was that, from top to bottom, they were streaked red with human blood, while alongside them were rack upon rack of skulls. A rank smell of putrefaction hung in the air. It became clear to the invaders from Christian Europe that, in this otherwise perfect city of hospitable and well-mannered people, human sacrifice was practised on a massive scale. A stone at the top of the steps was where men – usually but not always tranquillised with ‘magic mushrooms’ – were held down while the high priest slit open their chests with a sharp blade made from flint or volcanic rock, and plucked out their hearts…” (Funny, in the Neil Young song, sacrifice is mentioned, but I wonder how the victims would have felt about this line: “They offered life in sacrifice / So that others could go on…”)

Montezuma’s Revenge, we could say, has been that the myth of his “paradise” would serve as real history.

Mall instinct…

“…Gatherers [cave women--think Raquel Welch in 'One Million BC'] sifted the useful from things that offered them no sustenance, warmth or comfort with a skill that would eventually lead to comfortable shopping malls and credit cards…” Article here.

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Related: let’s not forget the shopping cart: [Such a]  trivial device as a shopping cart may surprisingly contribute to shaping exchanges in supermarkets… from ‘Calculation, qualculation, calqulation: shopping cart arithmetic, equipped cognition and the clustered consumer’– Tell it like it is…Yeah!

Mark of the Spanish Inquisition…

Three cheers for the Spanish Inquisition…Yes, a time when Christians were Christians and women were witches. It was a time when a Jesus freak could find endless amusement in torture and maiming.

Above is an early Christian sexual device (well, at least they got off on it) called the Pear of Anguish. Using it on the blasphemous, for example, was was said to bring Inquisitors to the point of orgasm.

Related: The start of the Inquisition.

Travel fail

“…The Pyramids and Sphinx! I had believed, until we tumbled out of our coach, that they were located in the middle of the desert, miles from the nearest city or town. They are RIGHT next to Cairo and to be frank, boring, which may explain why there were so few people there. A massive let down to all of us on the trip made worse by the locals trying to force you to buy their wears – was little different to the antipodean chuggers on a British high street. The only upside is the history of both wonders. Reading about them is a lot more interesting than the visit…” (Don’t worry, the Grand Canyon isn’t much better.)  Here.

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Speaking of fail:  “Lowes, though having its fair share of disgruntled customers, is not the topper for bad customer service – it is beaten by Home Depot. When this customer wanted to complain to the Home Depot manager about a rude employee, the manager seemed to be worse! “After 10 or so minutes I asked where the manager was, the person behind the desk called again. At that time the so called manager Anthony called back, did not bother to come to the service desk just called and said, “What does the customer want”.” This Business Week article elaborates “The University of Michigan’s annual American Customer Satisfaction index shows Home Depot slipped to dead last among major U.S. retailers, 11 points behind Lowe’s.” Americans ranked Home Depot’s customer service as dead last, according to Steven Silvers. Home depot customers complain about the worst service they received from the company…” Here.

Are the Beatles too old for today’s youngins’?

“They are a rock band from olden times,” adds Isabella. “They did lots of songs,” says Pearl, somewhat unhelpfully, but then Pearl’s musical interests are focused entirely on the soundtrack to Mamma Mia!, so she can be forgiven…” Article here.

Killer of Mary Jo Kopeckne, IRA terrorist sympathizer, exam cheater at Harvard finally dead as a doornail

The Fat Man of Mass Ted Kennedy finally dead at 77.  Teddy Kennedy will best be remembered for being the only Kennedy brother not assasinated while in office.

Kennedy leaving court in Edgartown after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, in which Mary Jo Kopeckne was left to die as Kennedy made his way to a comfortable hotel room to clean up and establish an alibi.

Meeting with IRA terrorist leader Gerry Adams in 2006.

Here he is with the sadistic grisly torturer Winnie Mandela.

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Sophie of Belfast, in the comments section of The Daily Mail, sums it up nicely (bravo, Sophie):

“Good riddance! He aided IRA murderers. He left a young woman to die! He was a drunk, a womaniser and a cheat (he cheated in his exams at university). He only survived in politics because his disreputable family had so much illegally gained money. He was a hypocrite too. He championed the poor and renewable energy, but he didn’t pay much in taxes, because the Kennedy money is tied up in off shore trusts etc. He claimed to support re-newable energy, but opposed an off shore wind farm because it was to be in the area where he liked to sail. I could go on and on. He and his whole family is rotten to the core.”

- sophie, belfast, 26/8/2009 6:12

Is Goldman-Sachs the devil? (er…yes)

Great, not to mention controversial, piece by Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every Financial bubble–including the internet bubble– since the Great Depression. Here.

Last suvivor of Titanic dies (finally!)

97 tear old Millvina Dean dies; she was the last surviving soul from the Titanic disaster. Thank God she’s dead; thank god the last survivor is dead now so we won’t have to hear about these people anymore. Every time one died over the years it would make front pages, TV news screens, internet headlines. You’d think they were the only ones who ever survived a terrible accident. Look around, the world’s full of survivors who never get mentioned when they finally kick off.  Millvina, you were probably a nice person and all, and no hard feelings, but thank god you’re gone.

(NOTE: I  especially  I hate the name Titanic; it’s because that mishap was the basis for so many shit movies, especially that god-awful piece of sickening romantic diarrhea version with Leonard DiCaprio.)

“The Day Wall Street Exploded”

The post title does not refer to the recent Wall St/corporate conflagration. It is the title of a new book about a terrorist attack that occurred in the 1920′s…

“…The bomb’s target was presumed to be the House of Morgan, which sat like a blockhouse just across the street from where the explosive had been left in a horse-drawn wagon……As with all terrorist attacks, most of the victims were innocent bystanders, “messengers, stenographers, clerks, salesmen, drivers,” men and women for whom “Wall Street was not a grand symbol of American capitalism” but “a place to make a modest living by selling milk, driving a car, typing reports, recording sales.” Only seven of the dead were over the age of 40. Five of them were women, four of them teenagers……Who would do such a thing? A bevy of the nation’s most prominent lawmen and private detectives immediately descended on Wall Street, blaming first anarchists, then paid agents from Lenin’s new government in Moscow. But years of investigation yielded nothing — no indictments, no trials, no culprits. No one ever came forward to take responsibility for the crime, or to state what it was supposed to accomplish, and before long it had dropped from public view, lost among the sensations of the racing, giddy ’20s…” Go here for the  rest of Kevin Baker’s NY Times review of The Day Wall Street Exploded by Beverly Gage.