Ongoing AMK Virus Alert

Post by Padraig L Henry
The RAV antivirus, among other antiviral programs, has been active on
the ISP's of AMK posters, who - like myself - have been victim of a
diverse assortment of viral attacks over the past month; I've been
receiving around 40 spam posts with viral attachments (many in the
guise of "Microsoft Security Patch Update" etc).
Clearly, someone familiar with AMK is attempting to infect the
computers of posters here, if the following notice (which I regularly
receive) is any indication.
Padraig

Since I use Macintosh & have pretty good email filtering and security none
of this stuff is anything other than a fantastic waste of bandwidth and a
minor annoyance to delete on a daily basis.

Back in September over a two week period I got around 3,000 emails attempted
to be sent to me containing the SoBig virus which my ISP bounced. I haven't
tried to keep track of all the Security patch update spams that have slammed
my inbox. They easily must have ranged in the thousands of copies of
variations on that particular variety of spam at this point.

40 spams a day is a fantastically low amount nowadays. I get more than 400
spams on the average day to my digiscape.com account. I'm sure any of you
that have posted using an email address in the clear have probably suffered
similar up-ticks in spam.

I've always posted with my digiscape.com email address in the open in
headers and didn't start getting massive amounts of spam until about a year
and a half ago from this practice in Usenet. Basically that email address is
in the wild as it were and only spam filtering allows me to keep it.

Since many friends here know my other more private email address I don't
think it's even an inadvertent security breach on the part of any long time
posters. One of our frequent trolls however might be responsible. It would
be near impossible to prove though.

Those of you with Windows machines that aren't properly patched or
fire-walled might be the source of some of this as a virus could get a hold
of your address book and start spamming everyone in it without you realizing
it.

Just putting a friends email address in your address book is as risky as
putting say a credit card number in there. Especially using a program like
Outlook for email and news on Windows is a high security risk because so
many viruses target it for email address harvesting. It's natural enough to
expect that what's on your computer or in your address book is private, but
that frequently isn't the case anymore with spam emails containing a virus
that can successfully attack and retrieve email addresses from a Windows
computer.

I seriously doubt that someone is targeting the group specifically. This is
most likely the work of spammers scanning Google, email address books via
virus or Usenet archives for email address.

On another note, PLEASE don't sign up your friends to ANY newsletters or
online-petitions without their consent.

These sorts of actions are usually done with the best intentions of alerting
people to what may indeed be an important issue be it political,
environmental or something else that seems important. The thing is that you
can never be sure what is going to happen to that email address once it is
out there in someone else's hands. Will they sell it? Will they keep it
secure? If you want to prevent you or your friend from being spammed you
should keep an email address as confidential as you would giving out a
credit card number.

For some tips on combating this kind of spam I suggest especially Windows
users keep up on the ongoing efforts and things you can do to protect
yourself from spam. TechTv.com and the networks various TV shows frequently
addresses this problem and has lots of up to the minute tips on doing so.
Here's just one to get you started.

http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/catsclicks/story/0,24330,3400780,00.html

--
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits."
-- Albert Einstein

Padraig L Henry

2003-10-30 22:58:36 UTC

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 14:17:28 -0600, Mike Jackson

40 spams a day is a fantastically low amount nowadays. I get more than 400
spams on the average day to my digiscape.com account. I'm sure any of you
that have posted using an email address in the clear have probably suffered
similar up-ticks in spam.

40 spams a day *with a file attachment containing a virus* ... a virus
that persists in directing itself at the e-mail addresses of
*predominantly" AMK posters, which should be apparent to all who care
to peruse the [partial] list of e-mail addresses I appended to my
previous post.

Post by Mike Jackson
Since many friends here know my other more private email address I don't
think it's even an inadvertent security breach on the part of any long time
posters.

????????????

Post by Mike Jackson
Those of you with Windows machines that aren't properly patched or
fire-walled might be the source of some of this as a virus could get a hold
of your address book and start spamming everyone in it without you realizing
it.

Well, yes, yes, Mick, we do know all that. But a virus only takes hold
of one's own system when one carelessly opens an incoming E-mail's
infected file attachment, something that, clearly, someone hereabouts
has inadvertently done, as a result of which many posters here
continue to receive such viral-infected re-posted E-mails, in an
endlessly repeating e-mail-posting subterranean loop. Perhaps they are
still unaware of it, or else are happy to tag along for the ride, and
carry on oblivious ...

I also have a Mac, which receives zero spam - because I never use it
for usenet-posting, web-surfing, or incoming e-mail, it being
near-always off-line :-)

Padraig
... so, again, who's the bleedin' little virus-carrying cretin still
oblivious to his own computer's continuing infectious on-line
rampage?

... and remember, turnips not pumpkins this Hallowe'en, o droogy
Druid ones.

Mike Jackson

2003-10-30 23:29:28 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 14:17:28 -0600, Mike Jackson

Well, it could be argued that by POSTING that you added any email addresses
in to the Google and other Usenet archives for SpamBots to harvest if they
already didn't have them. Some spam list or lists obviously DID in fact have
them, but any that didn't now have them available to harvest.

It probably wasn't your intention to give other SpamBots a shot at them, but
you did. It was unthinking on your part, but none the less MORE potential
damage done by posting those addresses yet again...

See how it works now?

Post by Mike Jackson
Since many friends here know my other more private email address I don't
think it's even an inadvertent security breach on the part of any long time
posters.

????????????

Had you sent me any email in the last year I probably would have replied
from my other email address. I don't use the digiscape one as often anymore
for day to day private email.

It no longer requires active, malicious intent to spread spam.

In some ways combating it by making a Windows machine more secure may be
beyond the competence level of many casual computer users.

Post by Padraig L Henry
I also have a Mac, which receives zero spam - because I never use it
for usenet-posting, web-surfing, or incoming e-mail, it being
near-always off-line :-)

If you are posting from an un-patched, un-secure Windows machine you may be
part of the problem you are bitching about.

If the Macintosh in question is in Internet-working order and fast enough to
run modern applications, I would suggest you do in fact switch to using it
for all internet activity. Macintosh is vastly more secure than Windows.

Post by Padraig L Henry
Padraig
... so, again, who's the bleedin' little virus-carrying cretin still
oblivious to his own computer's continuing infectious on-line
rampage?

Even if all AMKer's computers are updated, patched and secured the damage is
long since done on. Unless we all change our email addresses there is little
or nothing to be done at this point.

Once spammers have an address it's theirs to spam at forever.

Post by Padraig L Henry
... and remember, turnips not pumpkins this Hallowe'en, o droogy
Druid ones.

Are you now angry at pumpkins too?

--
"Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective
stories."
-- Arthur C. Clarke

pitch audio

2003-10-31 22:32:35 UTC

Yes, I've been receiving these emails by the shitload. Pretty
annoying.

My computer currently has a virus. It has 'deleted' my CD drives, and
I've tried everything to get them back, except destructive recovery
(which I would rather not do). I'm currently waiting to see if
Symantec/Norton can find a fix for the virus. I'm wondering if these
emails had anything to do with it, or if it is just coincidence. I
never downloaded the file attachments, but I wonder if just viewing
the email would do anything? I doubt it...

Have a good Halloween.

GS George

Mike Jackson

2003-10-31 22:43:09 UTC

Post by pitch audio
Yes, I've been receiving these emails by the shitload. Pretty
annoying.
My computer currently has a virus. It has 'deleted' my CD drives, and
I've tried everything to get them back, except destructive recovery
(which I would rather not do). I'm currently waiting to see if
Symantec/Norton can find a fix for the virus. I'm wondering if these
emails had anything to do with it, or if it is just coincidence. I
never downloaded the file attachments, but I wonder if just viewing
the email would do anything? I doubt it...
Have a good Halloween.
GS George

I believe it's possible to merely view an HTML email now and have your
Windows system attacked, something which wasn't true in the past.

Since I last posted I decided not to empty the trash just to see how many
I'm getting. Since I last posted in this thread at 5:30om yesterday, just
shy of 24 hours I've received 334 spams to my digiscape inbox. All filtered
to the trash thankfully.

Thank bog for Macintosh!

--
"Many men of course became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural
and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor, at least no one
worth speaking of."
- Douglas Adams

Alexander DeLarge

2003-11-02 16:08:53 UTC

On this email address and another one that I use for things online that you
have to "register" to use, I get almost nothing but spam, and a lot of it. I
guess anytime your email address gets "out there", the vultures will swoop in.

My "private" email addresses, on the other hand, get maybe 2 spams a MONTH at
most. So the best rule would probably be to not post under your "main" email
address, but to make one specifically for that purpose that you can afford to
have spammed.

As for the "Microsoft" virus attachments, I do get a lot of those too, and know
better than to open them. Also, AOL users in particular should get a sturdy
Firewall installed, that service is wide open for hackers. Zone Alarm
(available for FREE at download.com) will lock you down quite nicely.

Padraig L Henry

2003-11-01 01:43:09 UTC

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 17:29:28 -0600, Mike Jackson

Post by Padraig L Henry
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 14:17:28 -0600, Mike Jackson

Well thanks very much for your gratuitously offensive drivel here,
Mike, attempting to turn reality on its head by disingenuously blaming
the problem on me, when I was simply pointing out that an AMK poster
has an infected computer (for over a month now - see, for instance,
the thread at AMK from September 22 titled "Re: Try this correction
patch", the date it started) that continues to unsuspectingly churn
out E-mails with viral file attachments. I posted the list of e-mail
recipient addresses (which are always openly available on all
newsreaders anyway) in the hope that the individual in question might
be gently nudged towards a revelatory consciousness of the problem
being caused by his own system, but you'd rather conveniently blame
the whistleblower than the actual culprit. Much like all the
disappeared Iraq war-mongerers who unblinkingly paraded themselves
here (along with their passive, uninformed and unapologetic
supporters), some criminally blaming the continuing humanitarian
catastrophy they supported on those who tried to prevent it, and which
has now all come home to haunt them, viscerally so, poor bastards
[that is, until its Cuba's turn to be reign-of-terror dehumanised by
the Bush Admin in the fear-mongering, forget-Iraq run-up to election
2004].

Post by Mike Jackson
It probably wasn't your intention to give other SpamBots a shot at them, but
you did. It was unthinking on your part, but none the less MORE potential
damage done by posting those addresses yet again...

Thanks a lot. Unthinking, unlike your irrational scribblings here, of
course. And, for the putative benefit of the unwitting viral-infecting
poster here, I include the original E-mail list below once again.

Post by Mike Jackson
See how it works now?

E-mail list = infected-poster's E-mail-address book.

I think you need to educate yourself on this very simple, very
pedestrian issue, and *read* again what I wrote, because your head,
for whatever quotidian reason, is in some other antediluvian universe
right now, delirially spouting distractive, dislocatory and irrelevant
pseudo-tech gibberish.

Well, yes, yes, Mick, we do know all that. But a virus only takes hold
of one's own system when one carelessly opens an incoming E-mail's
infected file attachment, something that, clearly, someone hereabouts
has inadvertently done, as a result of which many posters here
continue to receive such viral-infected re-posted E-mails, in an
endlessly repeating e-mail-posting subterranean loop. Perhaps they are
still unaware of it, or else are happy to tag along for the ride, and
carry on oblivious ...
I also have a Mac, which receives zero spam - because I never use it
for usenet-posting, web-surfing, or incoming e-mail, it being
near-always off-line :-)

If you are posting from an un-patched, un-secure Windows machine you may be
part of the problem you are bitching about.

Your unbridled inability to cerebrally decelerate and calmly attempt
to understand what I wrote and what I was drawing attention to is
*your* problem, Mike, barking bitchyness aside. Frankly, I find your
unreasonable tone here to be consistently careless, hostile, and
slopily irresponsible, and a further ignoble contribution to the moral
collapse of this newsgroup ... the gracious acknowledgement of defeat
is not, and never has been ['cept for the natives], an American virtue
.... yet (but perhaps you might yet learn from the Brits, who are now
- and still - self-consciously struggling with the concept).

Post by Mike Jackson
If the Macintosh in question is in Internet-working order and fast enough to
run modern applications, I would suggest you do in fact switch to using it
for all internet activity.

Not on your life.

Post by Mike Jackson
Macintosh is vastly more secure than Windows.

Introduction to Micro-computers 101?

Post by Padraig L Henry
Padraig
... so, again, who's the bleedin' little virus-carrying cretin still
oblivious to his own computer's continuing infectious on-line
rampage?

Even if all AMKer's computers are updated, patched and secured the damage is
long since done on. Unless we all change our email addresses there is little
or nothing to be done at this point.

I see that your intransigently unwise political fatalism (paraded on
this newsgroup ad nauseum) even now extends to the administrivial
minutae of tech alerts: a "nothing to be done" response - with
respect to a simple, innocuous alert to a poster here who's computer
is infected with a virus that is easily rectified, the continuing
proximate cause of the problem that I was drawing attention to in the
first place but which you still have yet to specifically comprehend.

Post by Mike Jackson
Once spammers have an address it's theirs to spam at forever.

Post by Padraig L Henry
... and remember, turnips not pumpkins this Hallowe'en, o droogy
Druid ones.

Are you now angry at pumpkins too?

Yes, actually, I am: pumpkins, historically, have nothing whatsoever
to do with Hallowe'en; they are just another senseless [and tasteless
... :-)] American cultural mass-consumptive export, a fantasy
Hollywood-arbitrary construction, them polymorphic grabastic pieces of
amphibian polyester-orange .... Hallowe'en, as you obviously or
seemingly do not already know, originated in pagan Ireland as an
ancient celtic ritual to ward off "demons and evil spirits" on the
night prior to November 1. Pumpkins were never native either to that
island or to Britain [until about ten years ago], but turnips were,
and featured as part of the assorted "hallowed" rituals for
centuries. Have you copped on yet? Or do you require a further
pedantic history lesson?

Maybe we should start calling this the Pumpkin Viral Alert [free DVD
of "The Wicker Man" included with every turnip-infected file
attachment] ...

[On an unrelated but related note, I visited the newly-opened Bram
Stoker/Dracula museum here in Dublin today (just a hundred yards
across from Stoker's birthplace in Marino) only to immediately notice
that the auralscape to the gorefest exhibits on animatronic display
was none other than the controversial Jocelyn Pook piece "Masked Ball"
that - compliments of Nick Nightingale - diegetically featured in the
opening Somerton ritual sequence in Eyes Wide Shut, whatever *that*
might have to do with the Bhagavad-Gita ...

love may be blind, but marriage is an eye-opener?].

Padraig

=======================================================
The RAV antivirus, among other antiviral programs, has been active on
the ISP's of AMK posters, who - like myself - have been victim of a
diverse assortment of viral attacks over the past month; I've been
receiving around 40 spam posts with viral attachments (many in the
guise of "Microsoft Security Patch Update" etc).

Clearly, someone familiar with AMK is attempting to infect the
computers of posters here, if the following notice (which I regularly
receive) is any indication.

Padraig

RAV ANTIVIRUS SCAN RESULTS:

===>This e-mail is generated by the vaxca1.unica.it mail server to
warn you that the e-mail sent by ***@unica.it to

***@right.com, ***@softhome.net, ***@putermail.net,
anonymous-***@see.comment.header, ***@aaahawk.com,
***@hotmail.com, ***@digiscape.com, ***@concentric.net,
***@aol.com, ***@cavtel.net, ***@autogeek.com,
***@makelinks.com, ***@gnarled.net, ***@hotmail.com,
***@sympatico.ca, ***@yahoo.com, ***@aol.com,
***@ojai.net, ***@galactic-hwy.com, ***@rogers.com,
***@iol.ie, ***@ifreedom.com, ***@yahoo.co.uk,
***@email.com, ***@hotmail.com, ***@comcast.net,
***@liquidinformation.com, ***@rocketmail.com,
***@telkomsa.net, ***@tokyo.com, ***@earthlink.net,
***@rcn.com, ***@starstream.net, ***@netzero.net,
***@worldnet.att.net, ***@comcast.net, ***@aol.com,
***@tampabay.rr.com, ***@yahoo.com,
***@chello.nl, ***@yahoo.com, ***@yahoo.com,
***@boxing.com, hi!
***@captain.com, ***@att.net,
***@hotmail.com, ***@yahoo.co.uk,
***@dorve.net.ua, ***@darinboville.com,
***@pingpong.com, ***@aol.comkorova, ***@soulis.co.uk,
***@none.net, ***@hotmail.com, ***@prodigy.net, ***@me.org,
***@nc.rr.com, ***@codenet.net, ***@work.net,
***@hua.net, ***@aol.comnojunk, ***@someplace.org,
***@youunderstand.com, ***@tvnav.com,
***@nethere.com, ***@turkey.com, ***@wp.pl,
***@hotmail.com, ***@kmaproductions.com,
***@youunderstand.com, ***@swbell.net,
***@verizon.net, ***@mail.com,
***@sycugoiu.com, ***@whatvery.net, ***@reefkeepers.org,
***@aol.com, ***@hotmail.com, ***@optonline.net,
***@welho.com

is infected with virus: HTML/IFrame_Exploit*.

Please contact your system administrator for further information.

If you are the sender:
-------------------
The scanned e-mail has your address in the <From> header field. Either
your computer is infected or someone's computer having your e-mail
address in the address book has been infected.

(Please note that some viruses are sending e-mails directly from your
computer. Our advise is to check your computer using an up-to-date
antivirus product).

If you are the receiver:
---------------------
Please contact the sender: very probably he/she doesn't know he/she
has a computer virus.

Magic7Ball

2003-11-01 03:11:03 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
Yes, actually, I am: pumpkins, historically, have nothing whatsoever
to do with Hallowe'en; they are just another senseless [and tasteless
... :-)] American cultural mass-consumptive export, a fantasy
Hollywood-arbitrary construction, them polymorphic grabastic pieces of
amphibian polyester-orange ....

Pumpkins were used by Irish immigrants in North America because they were
more abundant than turnips.

I think you owe pumpkins an apology.

Padraig L Henry

2003-11-01 04:37:34 UTC

On Sat, 01 Nov 2003 03:11:03 GMT, "Magic7Ball"

Pumpkins were used by Irish immigrants in North America because they were
more abundant than turnips.
I think you owe pumpkins an apology.

You forgot to assimilate the bit where I said that "Hallowe'en, as you
obviously or seemingly do not already know, originated in pagan
Ireland as an ancient celtic ritual to ward off "demons and evil
spirits" on the night prior to November 1. Pumpkins were never native
either to that island or to Britain [until about ten years ago], but
turnips were, and featured as part of the assorted "hallowed" rituals
for centuries."

Imported pumpkins owe native turnips an apology. [ why, somehow, does
all of this remind me of the Tokyo department-store window that
featured a Santa Claus nailed to a cross? Shure maybe, soon, Le Big
Mac in America will signify a long French overcoat ...].

Magic7Ball

2003-11-01 06:42:12 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
You forgot to assimilate the bit where I said that "Hallowe'en, as you
obviously or seemingly do not already know, originated in pagan
Ireland as an ancient celtic ritual to ward off "demons and evil
spirits" on the night prior to November 1. Pumpkins were never native
either to that island or to Britain [until about ten years ago], but
turnips were, and featured as part of the assorted "hallowed" rituals
for centuries."

Eh? You stated the use of pumpkins was a senseless and arbitrary American
invention. In reality, pumpkins were used because turnips were not as
readily available in the new land. Moreover, Irish immigrants soon
discovered pumpkins were easier to carve and fashion into artwork.

I am the Pumpkin King!

Post by Padraig L Henry
Imported pumpkins owe native turnips an apology. [ why, somehow, does
all of this remind me of the Tokyo department-store window that
featured a Santa Claus nailed to a cross? Shure maybe, soon, Le Big
Mac in America will signify a long French overcoat ...].

That's clever, but I don't see what pumpkins and Halloween have to do with
apolylogies for century-old events. But since you brought it up (out of the
clear blue sky), what would be the use if all the original parties are dead
? Wouldn't an apology from people who did no harm to people who are not
being harmed be a bit disingenuous, phony and empty?

Tobasco

2003-11-03 11:05:43 UTC

"Padraig L Henry"
[ why, somehow, does

Post by Padraig L Henry
all of this remind me of the Tokyo department-store window that
featured a Santa Claus nailed to a cross?

they only did that to gull you Padraig. you let them see you coming..

Wordsmith

2003-11-01 06:57:04 UTC

Pumpkins were used by Irish immigrants in North America because they were
more abundant than turnips.
I think you owe pumpkins an apology.

Hmmm. I wonder. Is there such a thing as "pumpkin blight"?

Trickorsmith ;)

Mike Jackson

2003-11-01 07:40:09 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
40 spams a day *with a file attachment containing a virus* ... a virus
that persists in directing itself at the e-mail addresses of
*predominantly" AMK posters, which should be apparent to all who care
to peruse the [partial] list of e-mail addresses I appended to my
previous post.

The damage, you twit, is already long since done. The you assume that
someone's infected address book is to blame when like me you've posted your
email address IN THE CLEAR for any SpamBots crawling through the Google
archives to have long since harvested. I seriously suspect that close
examination of the addresses that you KEEP posting

I suggest you look into a book on The Internet for Dummies in case this
concept has escaped your grasp.

Post by Padraig L Henry
Much like all the disappeared Iraq war-mongerers who unblinkingly paraded
themselves here (along with their passive, uninformed and unapologetic
supporters), some criminally blaming the continuing humanitarian catastrophy
they supported on those who tried to prevent it, and which has now all come
home to haunt them, viscerally so, poor bastards [that is, until its Cuba's
turn to be reign-of-terror dehumanised by the Bush Admin in the
fear-mongering, forget-Iraq run-up to election 2004].

I see you still haven't checked into Rage-Oholic Anonymous to help you with
your problem about how we can't change human nature.

Everything revolves around American and our imbecilic President. Yeah, we
got it Paddy, Bush is more than half his enchiladas short of a combo plate.

And just what BRILLIANT plan do you have for changing that? Maybe you should
immigrate you ingrate, get naturalized and cast a vote few votes in the next
several elections and see how one guy can change the world.

Good! Two for two then giving the other assorted SpamBots crawling the web
another crack at any email addresses they don't already have!

Post by Mike Jackson
See how it works now?

E-mail list = infected-poster's E-mail-address book.

No. INCOMPLETE.

Your email address posted in the header of posts to Google ALSO equals
another notch on a spammers e-mail list.

Post by Padraig L Henry
I think you need to educate yourself on this very simple, very
pedestrian issue, and *read* again what I wrote, because your head,
for whatever quotidian reason, is in some other antediluvian universe
right now, delirially spouting distractive, dislocatory and irrelevant
pseudo-tech gibberish.

You really, really need to look into treatment for that Irish elbow problem
of yours. And if your excuse isn't that you haven't become the stereotypical
drunken Irish sot, then you really, really need a check-up from the neck up.

And brush up on your computer knowledge while your at it. You're making an
ass out of yourself, not that you astonishing lack of posting protocol to
AGAIN post people's email addresses hasn't pretty much blasted away any
doubt already....

Well, yes, yes, Mick, we do know all that. But a virus only takes hold
of one's own system when one carelessly opens an incoming E-mail's
infected file attachment, something that, clearly, someone hereabouts
has inadvertently done, as a result of which many posters here
continue to receive such viral-infected re-posted E-mails, in an
endlessly repeating e-mail-posting subterranean loop. Perhaps they are
still unaware of it, or else are happy to tag along for the ride, and
carry on oblivious ...
I also have a Mac, which receives zero spam - because I never use it
for usenet-posting, web-surfing, or incoming e-mail, it being
near-always off-line :-)

If you are posting from an un-patched, un-secure Windows machine you may be
part of the problem you are bitching about.

Step off bitch! I'll meet you anywhere you want and knock out what's left of
the teeth you have you drunken bastard! Come and get one in the yarbles, if
ya have any yarbles, ya eunuch jelly thou! A nozh scrap anytime you say.

That's really what you want isn't it? A good old fashioned real kick and
good for laughs and lashings of the old ultraviolence?

Not that I will because it's unsporting to wallop the town's droggy
imbecile...

If anyone's lowered the civility quotient around her it was you and your
blithering rantings about a war no one can do anything to stop. How many
posters called you on that you shit? Did you ever apologize for your
incredible shitty behavior toward posters that called you on it?

Not on your life.

Post by Mike Jackson
Macintosh is vastly more secure than Windows.

Introduction to Micro-computers 101?

Rigghht. Well may I suggest Linux, Unix, Sun, Irix or anything but Windowz?
I might even give back some IQ points I've deducted from my opinion of you
if you tell me you are using anything but Windowz. But since last time I
checked Forte Free Agent doesn't run on anything but Windowz my low opinion
of you will have to stand.

Post by Padraig L Henry
Padraig
... so, again, who's the bleedin' little virus-carrying cretin still
oblivious to his own computer's continuing infectious on-line
rampage?

Even if all AMKer's computers are updated, patched and secured the damage is
long since done on. Unless we all change our email addresses there is little
or nothing to be done at this point.

Okay smart ass, now that the email addresses in question are in the wild
wooly hands of spammers what can be done other than update your spam filters
or change your email address? Huh? Huh? I'm gonna love hearing what
Matrix-inspired nutty idea you think can fix this problem.

Put up or shut the fuck up!

Jebus you are shit stupid.

Post by Mike Jackson
Once spammers have an address it's theirs to spam at forever.

Post by Padraig L Henry
... and remember, turnips not pumpkins this Hallowe'en, o droogy
Druid ones.

Are you now angry at pumpkins too?

Well, it wasn't nice to keep carving ghoulish grins on the noggins of
drunken Irishmen we found in the gutter. Everything American is evil. I get
your point. Ad infinitum.

Post by Padraig L Henry
Hallowe'en, as you obviously or seemingly do not already know, originated in
pagan Ireland as an ancient celtic ritual to ward off "demons and evil
spirits" on the night prior to November 1. Pumpkins were never native either
to that island or to Britain [until about ten years ago], but turnips were,
and featured as part of the assorted "hallowed" rituals for centuries. Have
you copped on yet? Or do you require a further pedantic history lesson?

And your pointy head brings this up because? Should we only put little
Stonehenges in our windows? Pass out turnips to the tikes that come
knocking? Basically toss out one made up bullshit set of holiday traditions
for another set of older bullshit, made up holiday traditions?

IF IT'S NOT IRISH IT'S CRAP!!!

Post by Padraig L Henry
Maybe we should start calling this the Pumpkin Viral Alert [free DVD
of "The Wicker Man" included with every turnip-infected file
attachment] ...

Kee-rist! The whole world makes you angry doesn't it? Every time your
pitiful brain comes up against something it can't cope with in it's
Irish-centric little world you go WAA-WAA-WAA-titty-baby about it.

Post by Padraig L Henry
[On an unrelated but related note, I visited the newly-opened Bram
Stoker/Dracula museum here in Dublin today (just a hundred yards
across from Stoker's birthplace in Marino) only to immediately notice
that the auralscape to the gorefest exhibits on animatronic display
was none other than the controversial Jocelyn Pook piece "Masked Ball"
that - compliments of Nick Nightingale - diegetically featured in the
opening Somerton ritual sequence in Eyes Wide Shut, whatever *that*
might have to do with the Bhagavad-Gita ...
love may be blind, but marriage is an eye-opener?].
Padraig

I don't know, but bog help the woman that can put up with you!

--
"Whenever I hear the sparrow chirping, watch the woodpecker chirp, catch a
chirping trout, or listen to the sad howl of the chirp rat, I think: Oh boy!
I'm going insane again."
-- "Deep Thoughts" by Jack Handey

Padraig L Henry

2003-11-01 23:09:56 UTC

On Sat, 01 Nov 2003 01:40:09 -0600, Mike Jackson
<***@digiscape.com> wrote:

<much knee-jerk, aggressive personal abuse and incoherent ramblings
snipped>

I see you still haven't checked into Rage-Oholic Anonymous to help you with
your problem about how we can't change human nature.

That Americans - and their supporters - are engaging in mass-murder
abroad has nothing to do with "human nature"; not even the deluded
military would sink so low as to invoke such a pathetic, scapegoat
rationalisation.

Post by Mike Jackson
Everything revolves around American and our imbecilic President. Yeah, we
got it Paddy,

No, you have not understood anything, either about your own culture or
about the terminal bankruptcy of US foreign policy.

Post by Mike Jackson
Bush is more than half his enchiladas short of a combo plate.

Scapegoating again; you as a US citizen are equally to blame for the
mess that is contemporary America.

Post by Mike Jackson
And just what BRILLIANT plan do you have for changing that? Maybe you should
immigrate you ingrate, get naturalized and cast a vote few votes in the next
several elections and see how one guy can change the world.

It is not about one person changing the world, another dangerous
American myth; its about ordinary Americans awakening from their
present insanity and chronic passivity and organising to save what's
left of their democracy and their reputation throughout the world.
Never before have the majority of people I know felt such contempt for
present-day America and the abyssmal failure of its people to restore
to some normality their civil society and common humanity; people like
you, in pathological denial, violently attacking anyone drawing
objective attention to your current condition and plight. Americans
have the luxury of choice; the victims of their wanton violence and
oppression abroad [and at home] have no such luxury.

Post by Padraig L Henry
Your unbridled inability to cerebrally decelerate and calmly attempt
to understand what I wrote and what I was drawing attention to is
*your* problem, Mike, barking bitchyness aside. Frankly, I find your
unreasonable tone here to be consistently careless, hostile, and
slopily irresponsible, and a further ignoble contribution to the moral
collapse of this newsgroup ... the gracious acknowledgement of defeat
is not, and never has been ['cept for the natives], an American virtue
.... yet (but perhaps you might yet learn from the Brits, who are now
- and still - self-consciously struggling with the concept).

No, that's what *you* want, your outburst here indeed typical of
American "diplomacy", solving problems through violence, a by-now
congenital condition which the world is finally standing up to.

Post by Mike Jackson
If anyone's lowered the civility quotient around her it was you and your
blithering rantings about a war no one can do anything to stop.

Excuse me, but I take very serious exception to your dangerously
ignorant tirades here: it is *you* and *your* country that is engaged
in mass-murder. YOU HAVE A MORAL AND LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY TO TRY AND
PREVENT THIS CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY; OTHERWISE, YOU ARE A LEGITIMATE
TARGET FOR THE PEOPLE YOU ARE MURDERING. AND MAY YOUR GOD HAVE MERCY
ON YOUR LOST SOUL :-)

In the absense of Americans themselves stopping this war [along with
all the other ones, present and planned], only the legitimate Iraqi
resistence will succeed in bringing it to an end, the increasingly
likely outcome, but only after many, many more body bags and a
collapsed US society.

Post by Mike Jackson
How many
posters called you on that you shit? Did you ever apologize for your
incredible shitty behavior toward posters that called you on it?

At the arrogant level at which you speak above, All of the American
posters you refer to here owe me an apology, as they well know. As
does Katharina Kubrick Hobbs, as she well knows.

But I've no interest in receiving apologies; I understand their
position, and choose instead to forgive them for their transgressions,
and you. There are much more important, world-shattering issues at
hand, not that you've yet noticed.

Post by Mike Jackson
Well, it wasn't nice to keep carving ghoulish grins on the noggins of
drunken Irishmen we found in the gutter. Everything American is evil. I get
your point. Ad infinitum.

On the contrary, you don't, endlessly.

Perhaps you should consider taking heed of the following [self-evident
to the entire international community] insights:

A fiction shattered by America's aggression

William Pfaff IHT

Saturday, November 1, 2003 : PORTO, Portugal -

More than nine months into the Iraq crisis, meetings between West
Europeans and Americans of goodwill remain strained nondialogues in
which most of the American participants find it hard to admit that the
catastrophic loss of America's reputation abroad has anything to do
with them.

Such a meeting in this old port city last weekend produced the usual
American citations of scandalous incidents of foreign
anti-Americanism.

The German Marshall Fund statistics were circulated, showing that the
gap between American and European attitudes is widening and that
Europeans increasingly disapprove of America's position as the sole
superpower.

The Americans' response is nearly always that there must have been
some failure in communication. Perhaps the United States should
"consult" more, they say.

"It's as if they can't hear," said an Irishman who had thought of
himself as one of America's best friends abroad.

But every nation has a story - a narrative it tells to explain its
place in the flow of history and to give meaning to its actions. The
American story since 1942 (and before) is well known, and is
considered by Americans and others a story reflecting responsibility
and high-mindedness.

Despite aberrations in Vietnam and Latin America, the American story
of responsible world leadership has been accepted among democracies as
an essentially valid account of the role modern America played during
the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The problem
today is that, in the view of many others, the story has changed.
Another one has taken its place, even though most Americans deny that
this is so.

Because of the powerful Calvinist influence - predestinarian and
theocratic - in American Protestantism, the American story has always
described a confrontation between the Elect and the Evil.

When the Soviet Union no longer fulfilled the latter role, Washington
tried out several possible successors, finally settling on "rogue
nations" - those professing radically un-American ideas and that give
evidence of wanting to possess nuclear deterrents.

Their feebleness, however, tended to diminish their credibility when
cast in the role of global Evil.

Then came Sept. 11, and the problem was solved. The rogue nations now
became the Axis of Evil. They were integral to a vast international
threat, capable of striking the United States itself. Moreover, this
threat more or less resembled (less, actually, than more) the clash
between civilizations that Samuel Huntington had warned would be the
"next world war."

Americans declared that "everything has changed, and nothing can be
the same." The nation was at war with "terror."

Terror expressed itself through Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Palestinian
suicide-bombers, South American narco-terrorists, Chechen separatists
and Moro separatists in the southern Philippines. Terror was a
ubiquitous force that could ultimately manifest itself in weapons of
mass destruction, supplied by the rogue states.

Hence, preventive wars were necessary; Afghanistan and Iraq had to be
invaded to seize terror's leaders and their nuclear and biological
weapons. International law must step aside.

But what actually has happened during the past nine months is
something Americans have yet to grasp, and that others have yet to say
out loud: People outside the United States have stopped believing the
American story.

They don't think terrorism is an Evil force the United States is going
to defeat. They say instead that terrorism is a way people wage war
when they don't have F-16's or armored divisions.

They say that Chechens, Moros, Taliban, Colombian insurgents,
Palestinian bombers and Iraqi enemies of the U.S. occupation do not
really make up a single global phenomenon that the world must mobilize
to defeat.

They say that, actually, they had never really believed the American
story in the first place. They had listened to it because Washington
said it, and they respected Washington. Now they don't.

This is the reason why there is trouble between the United States and
the countries that have been its allies. And this is why it may indeed
prove true that between them, things "will never be the same."

Copyright: Tribune Media Services International

Mike Jackson

2003-11-02 01:12:14 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
On Sat, 01 Nov 2003 01:40:09 -0600, Mike Jackson
<much knee-jerk, aggressive personal abuse and incoherent ramblings
snipped>

Hey, this is a return to the good old days of AMK!

It's gotten rather quiet in here lately as we stopped arguing about the
problems of the world we can't solve but only jabber about.

We even can turn a stupid thread about internet viruses into a thread-jack
about world problems!

I haven't let a good old politically charged post rip in a while, so here
goes...

I see you still haven't checked into Rage-Oholic Anonymous to help you with
your problem about how we can't change human nature.

This is why you're an imbecile. It has EVERYTHING to do with human nature.

My fellow dimwitted American citizens voted the the over privileged
Bush-Baby into office in a knee-jerk reaction to the Clinton era.

People don't vote for who is qualified for the job, they vote their gut
feeling and many of them obviously still don't have enough brains to see how
disastrous this gut reaction strategy has been and will be to the planet for
decades to come.

Post by Mike Jackson
Everything revolves around American and our imbecilic President. Yeah, we
got it Paddy,

No, you have not understood anything, either about your own culture or
about the terminal bankruptcy of US foreign policy.

Culture eh? Pardon moi while I reach for my petri dish...
Explain to me how Americans are any stupider than any other humans in
history. That alone ought to be rich!

Post by Mike Jackson
Bush is more than half his enchiladas short of a combo plate.

Scapegoating again; you as a US citizen are equally to blame for the
mess that is contemporary America.

Right. Because I'm an American has nothing to do with with the vagaries of
where I was born. Because of this fact I'm also like my fellow working class
citizens equally responsible for every sin committed by any American in any
era regardless of how much I too objected to it.

Hey should we condemn the Jews that were put to death by Hitler too? After
all by your logic they were technically citizens of the Reich right? We
don't need to worry that they were victims of their own government, only
that they were citizens of that government to begin with right? Because they
couldn't get rid of Hitler before he unleashed his Master Plan on them
should we condemn them as getting their just reward? Of course not. That
would be beyond monstrously stupid.

But you are free to condemn all Americans for the actions of President Bush.
What will get me off the hook for the sins of George Bush? If I get interned
in Guantanamo Bay satisfy you? Executed for non-Republican thoughts?

What - and Ireland isn't as full of it's share of fools and killers? What
about the whole mess North of you? Catholics and Protestants who supposedly
think Jesus is just alright with them killing each other by the churchyard
full. For decades.

Wake up and smell the fucking coffee. It's HUMANS that are flawed, not the
particular governments, cultures or religions or any other damned thing you
want to hang blame on.

Post by Padraig L Henry
Never before have the majority of people I know felt such contempt for
present-day America and the abyssmal failure of its people to restore
to some normality their civil society and common humanity; people like
you, in pathological denial, violently attacking anyone drawing
objective attention to your current condition and plight. Americans
have the luxury of choice; the victims of their wanton violence and
oppression abroad [and at home] have no such luxury.

Yeah, well come on down to dear old Mississippi sometime and we'll call a
truce long enough for me to give you the grand tour of these people with the
"luxury of choice".

I'll show you some abysmal schools, neighborhoods and closed factories and
workplaces. I'll show you the line at the unemployment and welfare offices.
I'll take you over to the local United Way charity office and let them tell
you about how well all the people in the area are basking in "luxury of
choice".

And then we can open a road map of the USA and pick out anyplace in this
country at random, drive there and find the exact same conditions or worse.

Have you even been around America that you are so quick to criticize? I mean
outside of the airport lobby or some safe part of a major city?

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that everyone here is living it
up like Bush and his cronies. That we all cheer the troops on with cries of
more blood. Such is not the case. But you don't really care, you just want
to lump us all in Bush's bag.

Here's an aside for you.

As I write this George Bush is appearing at a rally right now forty miles
from where I sit over in Gulfport, Mississippi. He's there on behalf of one
of his political cronies running for governor of Mississippi, former head of
the National Republican Party Halley Barbour.

Barbour is ahead in polls on a platform of attacking those of us who voted
to rid the state of Mississippi of it's inclusion of the racist Confederate
Battle Flag as part of our state flag. Our incumbent Democratic Governor
Ronnie Musgrove tried to get rid of this racist symbol in 2000 and it was
voted down 2 to 1.

Barbour is also ahead using the fallacious argument that our incumbent
Democratic governor Ronnie Musgrove is to blame for jobs lost in the Bush
economy. Business that have left the state of Mississippi have done so
because despite how cheap labor is here, cheaper than anywhere else in the
USA, it's cheaper in Mexico or the Pacific Rim. None of these arguments sway
Republican voters who can only process that they lost their jobs.

I've been to political rallies for both parties. NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani was
here last Wednesday supporting Republican Barbour. The irony was fantastic.
The turn out was great because the Republican party lured the crowd with a
free cookout of barbequed pork. I mean the blatant symbolism of that alone
was breathtaking.

People everywhere where waving the racist Confederate Battle flag which
probably made urban Rudy a little nervous. Did he speak out against the
racism inherent in Barbour's campaign? Nope. He told the 2,000+ crowd what
good little Republicans they were for supporting Barbour and how great it'll
be for us to have Barbour as our next governor because he's a close personal
buddy of George W. Bush. Anything nice I thought of Rudy after 9/11 went
right out the window watching his sickening performance and tacit
endorsement of racism.

And I have little doubt that Mississippi is going to elect Barbour. But what
to do about it? I've argued with people and campaigned against him.

Right now Mississippians are scared. They are scared for their jobs. They
are scared because most of the citizens have no access to health insurance
they can afford. They are scared of rising taxes and loosing their homes.
They are afraid of crime. Afraid of terrorism even though nothing remotely
connected to it will likely ever happen here.

Barbour is making strong-man arguments that he will magically be their
political sugar-daddy and make everything alright with no painful tax hikes
or hard choices. Anyone who surely believeth in him shall inherit the
Kingdom of GOP.

Musgrove by contrast makes the same tepidly received promises that Gore made
in his run for President. That there are no painless fixes. That times may
indeed get worse. You know, reality. And he's losing miserably for it.

Change the names and places and this is pretty much what has happened
throughout human history when times are tough and the populace is
frightened.

This sort of thing isn't solely endemic of Southerners or Americans. It
happens because of human nature. It happens because humans make irrational,
emotionally driven choices. And the worst in humans can come out at any time
anywhere if the conditions are right for it.

If you have a plan to fix this flaw in human nature we might well call you
the next Messiah. If you can give me the formula to change it, I'll strap on
my fucking sandals and follow you right into Hell itself.

No, that's what *you* want, your outburst here indeed typical of
American "diplomacy", solving problems through violence, a by-now
congenital condition which the world is finally standing up to.

Oh yeah right. Take sarcasm and turn it around. You are a full of spineless
and witless bluster. You'd like to scapegoat every last American as the
oppressor of the world and you. You just enjoy doing it from the anonymity
of your keyboard. You needn't provide any answers, just bitch.

Post by Mike Jackson
If anyone's lowered the civility quotient around her it was you and your
blithering rantings about a war no one can do anything to stop.

So you think that it's okay for someone to fly a fuel laden 747 up my ass
now do ya? Just because a bunch of rich jerk-offs I voted against are
tearing up the world?

You have become a terrorist thinker Padraig.

Post by Padraig L Henry
In the absense of Americans themselves stopping this war [along with
all the other ones, present and planned], only the legitimate Iraqi
resistence will succeed in bringing it to an end, the increasingly
likely outcome, but only after many, many more body bags and a
collapsed US society.

Again, HOW DO WE STOP THEM?

You keep saying this over and over and over.

It's your mantra. Bush must be stopped.

So how? How does the American who agrees that Bush is a wing nut actually do
it? Other than the only lawful way of voting his ass back to a Texas
retirement next November?

You say you want a revolution?

Hey, I want to hear YOUR plan.

You don't have one of course, but you will sidestep of snip this part.

Post by Mike Jackson
How many posters called you on that you shit? Did you ever apologize for your
incredible shitty behavior toward posters that called you on it?

At the arrogant level at which you speak above, All of the American
posters you refer to here owe me an apology, as they well know. As
does Katharina Kubrick Hobbs, as she well knows.

For that one alone you needed your ass kicked you spineless, witless moron.
I'm sure actually meeting your real life pathetic countenance no one could
actually bring themselves to do so.

That you don't understand why you owe Katharina and David Mullen an apology
to this day for your mindless pattering you are indeed pitiable.

Post by Padraig L Henry
But I've no interest in receiving apologies; I understand their
position, and choose instead to forgive them for their transgressions,
and you. There are much more important, world-shattering issues at
hand, not that you've yet noticed.

It's okay for you to spew hate, because right is one your side eh?

I'm sure glad you forgive me though.

Post by Mike Jackson
Well, it wasn't nice to keep carving ghoulish grins on the noggins of
drunken Irishmen we found in the gutter. Everything American is evil. I get
your point. Ad infinitum.

On the contrary, you don't, endlessly.
Perhaps you should consider taking heed of the following [self-evident

Let's snip your cut and paste arguments. If you can't answer the fucking
question you reach for a newspaper article.

Yep, the American government is morally bankrupt and run by men lining their
pockets.

Yep, their waging war purely for ideological and monetary self-interest and
the interest of their cronies.

You think that Germany France and Russia helping Saddam build his country's
technological and military infrastructure while Saddam was murdering his own
citizens was any different?

Do you seriously think that working German, French and Russian citizens had
any more say in what their countries did than Americans have now? Because I
don't.

The question you will never answer because you can't is what any ordinary
citizen can do to change the policies of a national government. Even voting
at a ballot box isn't assured anymore.

Republicans are poised to win the next American election on electronic
voting machine shenanigans alone.

And so it goes.

Anyone interested in getting together with me on getting started digging
that mineshaft yet? Hey, for added irony we can include a GAP store down
there while we wait out the end of the world.

--
"If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?"
-- Lily Tomlin

Tobasco

2003-11-03 11:25:53 UTC

"Mike Jackson"

Post by Mike Jackson
I see you still haven't checked into Rage-Oholic Anonymous to help you with
your problem about how we can't change human nature.

Padraig Henry

Post by Padraig L Henry
That Americans - and their supporters - are engaging in mass-murder
abroad has nothing to do with "human nature"; not even the deluded
military would sink so low as to invoke such a pathetic, scapegoat
rationalisation.

Mike Jackson

Post by Mike Jackson
This is why you're an imbecile. It has EVERYTHING to do with human nature.

Hey guys! I'm a little fuzzy on the 'human nature' thing - help me out,
huh? If Joe Blow at the table next to me has a nice bit of chicken that I
want --- do I bash him over the head and take it? Is that 'human nature'?
If his cousin Mary Blow gets wet-aroused by my primitive macho aggression,
do I get her down on the floor with the old in-out real savage like? When
it comes time to leave and pay the bill -- do I deposit precious bodily
fluids on the ticket tray and tell the maitre' d that I'll need another $87
billion if he expects me to clean up this mess? Is that what you mean by
'human nature'?

Wide Eyed and Bushy Tailed in the briar patch.
Yours,
Tobasco

Mike Jackson

2003-11-03 20:42:35 UTC

Post by Tobasco
"Mike Jackson"

Post by Mike Jackson
I see you still haven't checked into Rage-Oholic Anonymous to help you with
your problem about how we can't change human nature.

Padraig Henry

Mike Jackson

Post by Mike Jackson
This is why you're an imbecile. It has EVERYTHING to do with human nature.

Ah, so you also don't know the difference between thought and action?

Post by Tobasco
If his cousin Mary Blow gets wet-aroused by my primitive macho aggression,
do I get her down on the floor with the old in-out real savage like? When
it comes time to leave and pay the bill -- do I deposit precious bodily
fluids on the ticket tray and tell the maitre' d that I'll need another $87
billion if he expects me to clean up this mess? Is that what you mean by
'human nature'?

Yep, that's human nature. It's all those little uncivilized thoughts you are
having; the the difference between what your emotions and instincts are
telling you that you want to do versus what you intellect and society is
expecting of you.

What exactly about the post you didn't like I'm not sure, but instead of
making rational argument you have decided to give into you anger and
dismissive point of view and ridicule the post.

Given that it's highly unlikely you don't know the reason why the example
behaviors you cited are wrong you have provided an excellent example of
human nature!

Maybe you would like to read a little Margaret Mead?

Knuckles dragging the ground and they won't let you in the library? Try this
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/humannature/

Post by Tobasco
Wide Eyed and Bushy Tailed in the briar patch.
Yours,
Tobasco

So if we grind you up and mix you with some vinegar and a dash of salt would
you still be as spicy?

--
"Who is wise? He that learns from everyone.
Who is powerful? He that governs his passions.
Who is rich? He who is content.
Who is that? Nobody.
-- Benjamin Franklin "Poor Richard's Almanack"

Tobasco

2003-11-03 21:55:22 UTC

"Mike Jackson" >

Post by Mike Jackson
Ah, so you also don't know the difference between thought and action?

You and your fellow droogies are the >experts< in all matters of 'human
nature' MJ, having deciphered all things Kubrickean and otherwise; so you
tell me oh great swami --- please teach us all re: this great matter of
thought and action. Send the bill for your required ass-kissing to ----
whoever cares.

Post by Mike Jackson
Yep, that's human nature. It's all those little uncivilized thoughts you are
having; the the difference between what your emotions and instincts are
telling you that you want to do versus what you intellect and society is
expecting of you.

Gee thanks --- have you considered opening a franchise? MJ&Ichy's "The
Really Really Real Truth" (tm) ---- Instincts served on a sesame seed
bun --- intellect condition baked in nihlist hermetic ovens. Supersize
that?

Post by Mike Jackson
What exactly about the post you didn't like I'm not sure, but instead of
making rational argument you have decided to give into you anger and
dismissive point of view and ridicule the post.

Uh-huh --- I tend to view presumptuous (not to mention groundless),
assertions, esp. those with pretensions WRT explaining 'human nature' so
flippantly with more than a tad of dismissive ridicule. A certain filmmaker
was renowned for this very attitude - hmmmmmmm guess I've been conditioned.

Post by Mike Jackson
Given that it's highly unlikely you don't know the reason why the example
behaviors you cited are wrong you have provided an excellent example of
human nature!

Is this the equivalent of calling me an imbicile? The rapier- sharp wit of
the resident Kubrick-Guru strikes again! Let's see --- you so blithely
pointed to our Oirish renegade as an 'imbicile' -- now you point this
oh-so-wicked, knightly, dragon slayer on poor little cottontailed Tobasco.
tsk tsk -- such unconditioned and thoughtless bullying. Maybe you could get
a life outside of AMK? Take your represssed 'human nature' out on a spin
around the Gulf or something... You and Ichy can drop A-bombs on Faulkner's
grave ---- chalk it up to Pogue Nature and then go back to burying your
heads in the sand; All the while bitching and moaning about the nasssssty
Republicans, doing absolutely >nothing< about it

Hmmmm --- you've accused me of being angry --- so therefore it >must< be
true. You must have learnt that from Hannity...

Post by Mike Jackson
Maybe you would like to read a little Margaret Mead?
Knuckles dragging the ground and they won't let you in the library? Try this
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/humannature/

Knuckles on the ground? Hmmm they're not hairy if that is your meaning.
Perhaps your confusing my knuckles with your palms.

Oh yes ----- Margaret Mead and Ben Franklin (great stove!) - the ultimate
arbiters of 'human nature'.

Is this to be the battle of the dueling Influences? Great (Wo)Man vs Great
(Wo)Man? Is MJ to devastate us all with the Really Really Real Truth (tm)
by citing MM and whoever else pops into his head by way of free association?
"Yeah --- I read this book once...".

OK --- I'll counter --- influence for influence.
http://www.dragg.net/users/pennywitt/bugs/bugs1.htm

Have a nice day.

Mike Jackson

2003-11-03 22:52:32 UTC

in article KeApb.30560$***@bignews3.bellsouth.net, Tobasco at
***@bellsouth.net wrote on 11/3/03 3:55 PM:

Dontcha just love how a thread can mutate in AMK?

Post by Mike Jackson
Ah, so you also don't know the difference between thought and action?

You and your fellow droogies are the >experts< in all matters of 'human
nature' MJ, having deciphered all things Kubrickean and otherwise; so you tell
me oh great swami --- please teach us all re: this great matter of thought and
action. Send the bill for your required ass-kissing to ---- whoever cares.

My amusement with your piss and bile is my own reward. I so look forward to
when you de-lurk. I know you can take a nothing day & suddenly make it all
seem worthwhile.

Gee thanks --- have you considered opening a franchise? MJ&Ichy's "The Really
Really Real Truth" (tm) ---- Instincts served on a sesame seed bun ---
intellect condition baked in nihlist hermetic ovens. Supersize that?

Oh no, I wouldn't dream of violating your intellectual copyright.

Less is Moore...

Post by Mike Jackson
Given that it's highly unlikely you don't know the reason why the example
behaviors you cited are wrong you have provided an excellent example of human
nature!

Is this the equivalent of calling me an imbicile?

I'm sure you must be good for something though I confess I haven't enough
information to figure out what that is yet.

Post by Tobasco
The rapier- sharp wit of the resident Kubrick-Guru strikes again! Let's see
--- you so blithely pointed to our Oirish renegade as an 'imbicile' -- now you
point this oh-so-wicked, knightly, dragon slayer on poor little cottontailed
Tobasco. tsk tsk -- such unconditioned and thoughtless bullying. Maybe you
could get a life outside of AMK?

But I just save a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.

Post by Tobasco
Take your represssed 'human nature' out on a spin around the Gulf or
something... You and Ichy can drop A-bombs on Faulkner's grave ---- chalk it
up to Pogue Nature and then go back to burying your heads in the sand; All
the while bitching and moaning about the nasssssty Republicans, doing
absolutely >nothing< about it

Was I supposed to be doing something about them? I guess I'll have to add
this to my quest I keep getting reminded of when people ask me if I've found
Jesus.

Post by Tobasco
Hmmmm --- you've accused me of being angry --- so therefore it >must< be true.

Isn't it wonderful how that works?

Post by Tobasco
You must have learnt that from Hannity...

Close, your hero Bill O'Reilly! Hey, who's looking out for you kid?

Knuckles on the ground? Hmmm they're not hairy if that is your meaning.
Perhaps your confusing my knuckles with your palms.

You don't have the courtesy to give a guy a reach-around?

Post by Tobasco
Oh yes ----- Margaret Mead and Ben Franklin (great stove!)

I prefer the Almanac which is far more useful...

Post by Tobasco
- the ultimate arbiters of 'human nature'.

Hey now, don't get carried away.

Post by Tobasco
Is this to be the battle of the dueling Influences? Great (Wo)Man vs Great
(Wo)Man? Is MJ to devastate us all with the Really Really Real Truth (tm) by
citing MM and whoever else pops into his head by way of free association?
"Yeah --- I read this book once...".

Don't forget I saw a little on tee-vee...

Post by Tobasco
OK --- I'll counter --- influence for influence.
http://www.dragg.net/users/pennywitt/bugs/bugs1.htm

My hero!

Post by Tobasco
Have a nice day.

You too!

--
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
-- Oscar Wilde.

Magic7Ball

2003-11-04 03:25:40 UTC

Post by Tobasco
Padraig Henry

Mike Jackson

Post by Mike Jackson
This is why you're an imbecile. It has EVERYTHING to do with human nature.

I believe Mike was stating America's aggressive way of dealing with matters
is a direct result of human predisposition, in response to the notion
offered forth by Padraig that General Ripper and Sgt. Hartman invented
mass-murder. When will people realize blood-thirst is not a trait unique to
American culture?

Your ridicule of Mike's post presents you as some sort of next step in
evolution. But if you are so squeaky-clean of aggression and irrational
anger, why do your posts in this thread mainly consist of personalizing the
discussion (attacking Mike, and not the issues)? Is name-calling a
"civilized" way to debate? Beat your chest!

Good old A.M.K.: chockfull of irony, I tell you.

Mike Jackson

2003-11-04 04:22:01 UTC

Post by Tobasco
Padraig Henry

Mike Jackson

Post by Mike Jackson
This is why you're an imbecile. It has EVERYTHING to do with human nature.

Hey guys! I'm a little fuzzy on the 'human nature' thing - help me out, huh?
If Joe Blow at the table next to me has a nice bit of chicken that I want
--- do I bash him over the head and take it? Is that 'human nature'? If his
cousin Mary Blow gets wet-aroused by my primitive macho aggression, do I get
her down on the floor with the old in-out real savage like? When it comes
time to leave and pay the bill -- do I deposit precious bodily fluids on the
ticket tray and tell the maitre' d that I'll need another $87 billion if he
expects me to clean up this mess? Is that what you mean by 'human nature'?

Well, that's only because us Americans are REAL good at it! The big
difference here is we elect a new dictator, I mean dim-bulb every four years
who is free to cry havoc and let loose his lapdogs of war. That the rest of
the world hates us en masse is hardly unreasonable, but it's just the latest
wrinkle in the march of progress.

Post by Magic7Ball
Your ridicule of Mike's post presents you as some sort of next step in
evolution.

Now, now, he is a rather handsome man I hear so let's not jump to
conclusions about Dave. You don't think he's a new phenomenon, do you? You
know, an early clue to the new direction?

For all I know he might have fought in a war for our sort.

Post by Magic7Ball
But if you are so squeaky-clean of aggression and irrational anger, why do
your posts in this thread mainly consist of personalizing the discussion
(attacking Mike, and not the issues)? Is name-calling a "civilized" way to
debate? Beat your chest!
Good old A.M.K.: chockfull of irony, I tell you.

Oh, I don't mind, it's a refreshing return to the good old days around here.
The grand old days when men were real men, women were real women and trolls
were peckerheads from South America.

It'd been getting rather musty and lonely here in AMK without a few straw
man arguments, ad hominem attacks and some outright trolls.

I'm sure someplace SK looks down on this mix of toxic soup and high fives
Darwin.

--
"Few things are harder to put up with than a good example."
-- Mark Twain

Bill Reid

2003-11-04 07:42:19 UTC

Post by Mike Jackson
It'd been getting rather musty and lonely here in AMK without a few straw
man arguments, ad hominem attacks and some outright trolls.

Koobrik sux and wuz dum!

---
William Ernest Reid

Tobasco

2003-11-04 05:04:29 UTC

"Magic7Ball"

Post by Magic7Ball
I believe Mike was stating America's aggressive way of dealing with matters
is a direct result of human predisposition, in response to the notion
offered forth by Padraig that General Ripper and Sgt. Hartman invented
mass-murder. When will people realize blood-thirst is not a trait unique to
American culture?

And do 'believe' that you actually even understood my post?

"You may think you know what's going here Jake, but you don't."

No, I'm serious folks ---- please let me in on this grand hermetic secret of
'human nature'. I'm simply discovering - finding a sense of wonder to walk
in. The posters tossing 'Human Nature' this and 'Human Nature' that around
like so many magic formulae and sure-fire recipes of enlightenment simply
amaze me with the breadth of wisdom they apparently carry about like so many
tricks in a magic bag.
Indeed Mr7Ball ---- please describe the view from such lofty heights as
you've attained on the high ground of ironic rhapsody --- will you come down
from the mountain Strauss a'blazing to issue your dictums?
OIC --- if you told me - you'd just have to kill me.

Just human nature huh?

Mike Jackson

2003-11-04 05:46:11 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
"Magic7Ball"

Post by Magic7Ball
I believe Mike was stating America's aggressive way of dealing with matters
is a direct result of human predisposition, in response to the notion offered
forth by Padraig that General Ripper and Sgt. Hartman invented mass-murder.
When will people realize blood-thirst is not a trait unique to American
culture?

So what don't you understand? From your best friend to your President that
says one thing when you know they mean another? The duplicity, the
sneakiness, the downright self-delusion that is the human animal? You don't
get any of that?

Ridiculous religions, laws and social conventions that utterly deny the
existence of human attitudes that go against them. "Just Say No!" "War on
Poverty, Drugs, Terror, Etc"... Compassionate Conservatives. The Moral &
Silent Majorities? (personally I think these two should just merge and
truthfully be the Morally Silent Majority)

You want to go on record that you don't know what anyone says when they say
"human nature"?

Boy, them is some big hairy ones you got!

Post by Padraig L Henry
Indeed Mr7Ball ---- please describe the view from such lofty heights as
you've attained on the high ground of ironic rhapsody --- will you come down
from the mountain Strauss a'blazing to issue your dictums?
OIC --- if you told me - you'd just have to kill me.
Just human nature huh?

To be the snake oil salesman prophesizing or the dope wanting to receive
some?

--
"Of course I believe that solipsism is the correct philosophy, but that's
only one man's opinion."
-- Melvin Fitting

Tobasco

2003-11-04 06:08:03 UTC

"Mike Jackson"
So what don't you understand?

Oh ---- lots that I do not understand - in fact that which I do not
understand would fire a universe --- if not multiverse.

From your best friend to your President that

Post by Mike Jackson
says one thing when you know they mean another? The duplicity, the
sneakiness, the downright self-delusion that is the human animal? You don't
get any of that?
Ridiculous religions, laws and social conventions that utterly deny the
existence of human attitudes that go against them. "Just Say No!" "War on
Poverty, Drugs, Terror, Etc"... Compassionate Conservatives. The Moral &
Silent Majorities? (personally I think these two should just merge and
truthfully be the Morally Silent Majority)
You want to go on record that you don't know what anyone says when they say
"human nature"?

OIC --- but UC --- I wouldn't consider any of that 'human nature' but
instead the product of said 'nature'. What is the nature that is producing
all this phenomena? BTW to include: organizations that fight and work for
peace, cures to illnesses, to ease suffering etc.

As far as going 'on record' --- by all means mark me down as one who does
not know - in any absolute, rational, abstract or categorical sense - >what<
'human nature' truly is. ie mark me down with the rest of humanity.
Will Jehoova Beehoova be checking the list --- twice?

Post by Mike Jackson
Boy, them is some big hairy ones you got!

hmmmm --- my gf says something about eggy-weggs.

Mike Jackson

2003-11-04 07:24:24 UTC

Post by Tobasco
"Mike Jackson"

Post by Mike Jackson
So what don't you understand?

Oh ---- lots that I do not understand - in fact that which I do not
understand would fire a universe --- if not multiverse.

Oh, then the stay away from the quantum foam which might make you roam...

Post by Mike Jackson
From your best friend to your President that says one thing when you know
they mean another? The duplicity, the sneakiness, the downright self-delusion
that is the human animal? You don't get any of that?
Ridiculous religions, laws and social conventions that utterly deny the
existence of human attitudes that go against them. "Just Say No!" "War on
Poverty, Drugs, Terror, Etc"... Compassionate Conservatives. The Moral &
Silent Majorities? (personally I think these two should just merge and
truthfully be the Morally Silent Majority)
You want to go on record that you don't know what anyone says when they say
"human nature"?

OIC --- but UC --- I wouldn't consider any of that 'human nature' but
instead the product of said 'nature'.

A HA! A hair splitting exercise in semantics is what you want! Oh well then,
be prepared to disappear down the rabbit hole... Maybe I could draw you a
picture? Or invite you over to watch some Kubrick films, hmmm?

Post by Tobasco
organizations that fight and work for peace, cures to illnesses, to ease
suffering etc.

Ah, so if I do something "human naturely" like trying to provoke the maximum
anger and a fight- the tried and true pal of AMK, the old ad hominem-, let's
say for the purposes of experiment only - I were to say "your
mother/wife/girlfriend/sister/significant-other spreads it for any and
everyone" such an insult would most probably be successful provocation for
most human males.

And what's going on here? Oh the BY-PRODUCTS would probably be a pair of
malchicks in a nozh scrap with plenty of tolchocks to the gulliver.

So you want to know WHY? What is the source of this inability to realize
that sticks and stones many break my bones but words shall never hurt me?
What makes us dish more than gossip out on each other?

Why do humans do these things? Why can't the itty scorp make it across the
river on the frogs back? Why don't they behave rationally all the time?

Because it's not just the brain itself that is always in the driver's seat.
It does get a warm fuzzy feeling when it works for peace, cures and illness
and eases suffering, but I'd say it probably gets a bigger thrill from being
awash in testosterone and adrenalin and other various little amino chains it
gets when it goes and does something very naughty.

Oh there's some calculation from time to time of a ruthlessly rational if
immoral sort that says I shall do this because I will most likely get away
with it. This greed, this avarice and other things are as deeply ingrained
as hunger and lust, just look at the little lords of the flies in any
day-care center.

We delude ourselves that we spank, discipline and rationalize such innate
hormonal behavior out of those children, but we really just teach them to
turn it under, to hide it, to smile and bide their time until they can
unleash it for maximum gain and minimum risk. Welly, welly, well!

Of course there are the better angels of our nature in there too. Is it all
produced by the interaction of intellect and hormones? Hmmm...

We could go deeply into the millennia of neuron and brain structure
development, the strategies for organisms to survive be they man or beast
and keep going till we wonder if all of life is merely a joke played on us
by prankster mesons and leptons duking it out with tachyons and muons and
other assorted sub-atomic particles...

If you would like me to lecture you on Life, the Universe and Everything I'm
afraid there will be a rather hefty fee. I can offer you a curly sheepskin
in the end though. Something to keep you warm on those cold winter evenings.

Post by Tobasco
As far as going 'on record' --- by all means mark me down as one who does
not know - in any absolute, rational, abstract or categorical sense - >what<
'human nature' truly is. ie mark me down with the rest of humanity.

Ah but could we pin you down to an admission of "I know it when I see it"?

Post by Tobasco
Will Jehoova Beehoova be checking the list --- twice?

I suppose caring depends on if you've been excessively naughty or nice.

Post by Mike Jackson
Boy, them is some big hairy ones you got!

hmmmm --- my gf says something about eggy-weggs.

One probably wondered what that great big horsy gape of a grin did
portend...

--
"I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the
whole field to private industry."
-- Joseph Heller

Tobasco

2003-11-04 09:12:30 UTC

"Mike Jackson" >

Post by Mike Jackson
Oh, then the stay away from the quantum foam which might make you roam...

Why should I stay away fom beer? I like beer. I am a tad reserved re:
string-shine --- but a sip or two of a multi-shot now and again...

Post by Mike Jackson
A HA! A hair splitting exercise in semantics is what you want! Oh well then,
be prepared to disappear down the rabbit hole... Maybe I could draw you a
picture? Or invite you over to watch some Kubrick films, hmmm?

Oh I might slip down the rabbit hole soon now -- and yes a picture might be
nice - you are a photographer, right?
As for semantic pin-head dancing --- errrrr no MJ --- as much as you appear
to want it to be.

Stanley Kubrick made films. Can it be said that Kubrick >was< the films?
Can it be said that this was the entirety of Stanley Kubrick, the human
being? Were Stanley Kubrick's films >his 'human nature'<? Was there not a
creative being that was developing a product, a creation, a work, a bit of
phenomena in all this? That at the same time was and was not his creation.
Who/What was that being? Did Stanley Kubrick know? When you come up with a
definitive answer to this...

Post by Tobasco
organizations that fight and work for peace, cures to illnesses, to ease
suffering etc.

Maybe -- some might simply consider you a moronic turd and ignore you
entirely.

Post by Mike Jackson
And what's going on here? Oh the BY-PRODUCTS would probably be a pair of
malchicks in a nozh scrap with plenty of tolchocks to the gulliver.
So you want to know WHY? What is the source of this inability to realize
that sticks and stones many break my bones but words shall never hurt me?
What makes us dish more than gossip out on each other?

No MJ ---I do not want to know why. I've not brought the 'why' question up.
Oh ok --- why are you?

Post by Mike Jackson
Why do humans do these things? Why can't the itty scorp make it across the
river on the frogs back? Why don't they behave rationally all the time?

Firstly define rational, is it possible that I might behave in a manner that
is entirely rational from my POV and entirely irrational to yours? Is
'rational behavior' "human nature'? Or is this 'rationality' an arbitrary
creation; of and entirely subject to the direction of a cluster of
contingent influences that might be 100 degrees separated from this
consensual rationality that is so highly esteemed and ferociously clinged to
in Western culture.

Assertion: That which is categorized by society as The Ego/Personality is
in itself, an entirely arbitrary and subjective amalgam of elements so far
afield from each other and sourced in such a vast array of incidental
contingent events that a substantial Ego i.e. an >absolute< personality
cannot be said to exist at all. To mistake conditioned behaviors with
innate nature is error.

I just happened to lurk in when PH was lambasting kckh awhile back -- call
it syncronicity. Shaking my head, --- "Has PH lost his marbles?". Image:
PH at a dinner party arising and laying forth his unique tirade on this
woman as she held a fork full of peas & carrots in suspended animation, eyes
darting/rolling in search of the nearest door...
In my sense of decorum, influenced by innumerable details of development,
ranging back to who knows what level of cellular etiqutte practices in
primeval swamps to my own mother's occasionally stern, wordless
admonishments at the dinner table, this kind of assault is ---- out of the
question. Period.
But you see Padraig is not me. I am not him. I cannot level judgement in
any absolute sense on this person whose personality influences and
contingencies are beyond my ken.
Was it a fucked up thing to do? --- Yes.
Should the Irish renegade actually pay a bit of due to the 'old respect for
the other person' common decency convention? --- uhhh yes, I'd say so
Do I entirely disagree with the details of PH's issues and concerns re: what
he's on about? --- No.

Is this Padraig's 'human nature'? No --- Padraig was expressing an object
of personality in (IMO) a most abberant and aggressively bizarre manner.
Personality is not 'human nature' --- it is the nature of a human to form a
personality. Do you still consider this semantic hair-splitting?

So it is late --- I'll lurk back in a few days to respond to the remainder
of this post.

"And now it's time to say sayonnara..."

Mike Jackson

2003-11-04 14:00:56 UTC

Post by Tobasco
"Mike Jackson" >

Post by Mike Jackson
Oh, then the stay away from the quantum foam which might make you roam...

string-shine --- but a sip or two of a multi-shot now and again...

If you slurp up some quantum foam I'll be quite impressed. I'm sure it'll be
a Nobel endeavor.

Oh I might slip down the rabbit hole soon now -- and yes a picture might be
nice - you are a photographer, right?

Righty right right, though I have been known to dabble with pencil and brush
too.

Post by Tobasco
As for semantic pin-head dancing --- errrrr no MJ --- as much as you appear
to want it to be.

And yet here we go on Mr. Culpepper's Wild Semantics Ride...

Post by Tobasco
Stanley Kubrick made films. Can it be said that Kubrick >was< the films?

I do believe you are getting metaphysical on my buttocks.

Post by Tobasco
Can it be said that this was the entirety of Stanley Kubrick, the human
being?

He certainly seems to have been, though maybe that's the way he was
programmed. But as to whether or not he was genuinely completely possessed
by film making I don't think anyone can honestly say.

Post by Tobasco
Were Stanley Kubrick's films >his 'human nature'<?

No, films were his art form. His subjects were at the core about human
nature. As for his individual human nature we can be reasonably sure from
the things that we have heard his friends and family that he was possessed
with his share of the odd human habits and short-comings as the next fellow
but his genius far eclipsed any of those things.

Post by Tobasco
Was there not a creative being that was developing a product, a creation, a
work, a bit of phenomena in all this?

Of course there was. Sorry, but you seem to be a bit silly.

Post by Tobasco
That at the same time was and was not his creation. Who/What was that being?

Are we referring to his collaborators?

Post by Tobasco
Did Stanley Kubrick know? When you come up with a definitive answer to
this...

Hmm, this is something you may ponder about anyone from now until the ending
of the world. I believe you've gotten a bit off the track though.

Post by Tobasco
organizations that fight and work for peace, cures to illnesses, to ease
suffering etc.

Maybe -- some might simply consider you a moronic turd and ignore you
entirely.

Quite right old boy. And I'm sure that your kin are among the finest people.
As I said, an example. Even then if you believed me entirely didn't you feel
a few hairs on your hackles rise?

When this sort of verbal challenge is expressed for real the vast majority
will see red and come out ham fisted and ready to part heads with teeth,
even if they have the capacity to see they are being goaded like lemming to
go over the cliff. That is unless they've stood a few sessions of the
Ludavico treatment or maybe some nice old-fashioned electro-shock.

It is in our most animal nature to go for the fight or flight when
confronted with physical danger and I'd say rises to human nature in such a
situation when those words and ideas constitute danger. The animal nature
responds to physical threats and human nature in that instance above is the
interaction of the intellect processing this perceived verbal idea
effrontery as a kind of danger. You can call it many things, loss of face
leading to loss of status in the immediate group dynamic.

The difference between the animal and human natures is a slippery slope.
Where one leaves off and the other asserts has to be taken case by case.

No MJ ---I do not want to know why. I've not brought the 'why' question up.

Didn't you now? Let me requote yourself back to you.

Post by Tobasco
organizations that fight and work for peace, cures to illnesses, to ease
suffering etc.

Oh ok --- why are you?

Ah, clever. Should we put a time limit on this or shall we discuss the why
of 'why', the why of 'me' and the why of you 'you' till the end of time?

Post by Mike Jackson
Why do humans do these things? Why can't the itty scorp make it across the
river on the frogs back? Why don't they behave rationally all the time?

Firstly define rational, is it possible that I might behave in a manner that
is entirely rational from my POV and entirely irrational to yours?

A faith in supernatural beings has always seemed the height of irrationality
on the part of my fellow humans so yes, it is certainly possible.

Post by Tobasco
Is 'rational behavior' "human nature'?

I'm tempted to say yes, but then the dolphins might have a few
indecipherable clicks to say on the matter, Lassie might bark her head off
and the simians over at the zoo might fling some feces in derision.

Hell, it might also piss off the apes there too come to think of it.

Post by Tobasco
Or is this 'rationality' an arbitrary creation; of and entirely subject to the
direction of a cluster of contingent influences that might be 100 degrees
separated from this consensual rationality that is so highly esteemed and
ferociously clinged to in Western culture.

Yes, all the sum of human knowledge, religious and cultural tenets and so on
can vary wildly from culture to culture, nation to nation, religion to
religion and person to person and century to century. One day you're a loony
risking sailing off the edge of the world, the next you're in Jamaica mon.
Hey, don't Bogart that thing, pass it around.

Most of us meet these differences of opinion about what constitutes reality
with some degree of violence whether it be guns and ammo to the subtlest
slights of wit perhaps too exoteric for the recipient to perceive.

But then the term 'rationality' like 'human nature' is a catchall sort of
phrase like 'air' or 'atmosphere' doesn't finitely describe the certain
layers of our planets atmosphere, it's varied composition or properties, but
most humans would get the drift.

What 'coming up for air' means is a matter of semantics, unless of course
you're fleeing a burning building of sinking ship. Then it's just get the
fuckall outta my way.

Post by Tobasco
Assertion: That which is categorized by society as The Ego/Personality is
in itself, an entirely arbitrary and subjective amalgam of elements so far
afield from each other and sourced in such a vast array of incidental
contingent events that a substantial Ego i.e. an >absolute< personality
cannot be said to exist at all.

And life is but a dream. Row row row yer boat.

Say, concordantly, you aren't the guy that penned that Architect dialogue in
the last Matrix movie are you? I'm getting some real far-out déjà vu dude,
vis-à-vis this conversation we're having.

Post by Tobasco
To mistake conditioned behaviors with innate nature is error.

Are you talking to me? Maybe you want to explain this to the fellows trying
to turn a computer program into artificial intelligence. And say hello to
ASIMO for me eh?

Post by Tobasco
I just happened to lurk in when PH was lambasting kckh awhile back -- call
it syncronicity.

A connecting principle? Linked to the invisible? Almost imperceptible?
Something inexpressible? Science insusceptible? Logic so inflexible?
Causally connectible? That sort of thing? Well I guess if we share this
nightmare then we can dream spiritus mundi...

Post by Tobasco
Shaking my head, --- "Has PH lost his marbles?".

Yes and there's a hole in his roof where the rain comes in.

Post by Tobasco
Image: PH at a dinner party arising and laying forth his unique tirade on this
woman as she held a fork full of peas & carrots in suspended animation, eyes
darting/rolling in search of the nearest door... In my sense of decorum,
influenced by innumerable details of development, ranging back to who knows
what level of cellular etiqutte practices in primeval swamps to my own
mother's occasionally stern, wordless admonishments at the dinner table, this
kind of assault is ---- out of the question. Period.

Quite. Something we can agree on. And it is no doubt somehow lost on our P
Henry unless he has a pugilist face from actually doing this many times in
his day to day life at dinner parties or the local pub.

Post by Tobasco
But you see Padraig is not me. I am not him. I cannot level judgement in
any absolute sense on this person whose personality influences and
contingencies are beyond my ken.

I have observed many of his earlier posts and have formed the opinion that
for at least a time he knew better. What has caused him to go off his rocker
I don't know. I and many others read the posts that set him off and there
was no cause that I could see for it other than he has lost his grip.

But I'm quite comfortable at leveling judgment on him. He's barking loony.
And quite possibly no fun at dinner parties.

Post by Tobasco
Was it a fucked up thing to do? --- Yes.

Fantastic! It's so much fun to agree occasionally.

Post by Tobasco
Should the Irish renegade actually pay a bit of due to the 'old respect for
the other person' common decency convention? --- uhhh yes, I'd say so

Oh bliss and gorgeousity!

Post by Tobasco
Do I entirely disagree with the details of PH's issues and concerns re: what
he's on about? --- No.

But if for this little post we're having if I suddenly go off about American
Imperialism when it hasn't been remotely the topic of the conversation
wouldn't your say that agreeing or disagreeing is pretty much irrelevant?

Post by Tobasco
Is this Padraig's 'human nature'? No --- Padraig was expressing an object
of personality in (IMO) a most abberant and aggressively bizarre manner.

Oh yes, I agree, but that wasn't WHY I brought up human nature. I thought
we'd never get back to this!

He revels in painting all Americans as though we had joined with Bush in
some sort of group-think and had transported us all to Orwell-land. He has
demonstrated in the past the capacity to know this is wrong. If he's gone
off his Ritalin, I guess we can give him a pass, but he's pretty much gone
off into left field with his diatribes of late.

Post by Tobasco
Personality is not 'human nature' --- it is the nature of a human to form a
personality. Do you still consider this semantic hair-splitting?

Personality is informed by human nature as well as cultural, religious and
life experience. It's not some compartmentalized thing to be snapped on like
a Lego block. I think you are hair-splitting to drag on the argument to the
point where the other person tires of talking to you and then you can feel
victorious. If so you can claim victory, I'm tired of talking to you.

Besides I don't do this well so early in the morning when I've not had my
second cup of coffee yet.

Post by Tobasco
So it is late --- I'll lurk back in a few days to respond to the remainder
of this post.

Same bat time. Same bat channel?

Post by Tobasco
"And now it's time to say sayonnara..."

I don't think this is what they meant by parting being sweet sorrow...

--
"Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were
considered so distastefully explicit that, were they merely to be breathed
in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and
in extreme cases shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy
and proper, and their use in everyday speech and writing is evidence of a
well-adjusted, relaxed and totally unfucked-up personality."
-- Douglas Adams

Padraig L Henry

2003-11-05 02:01:10 UTC

Post by Tobasco
I just happened to lurk in when PH was lambasting kckh awhile back -- call
PH at a dinner party arising and laying forth his unique tirade on this
woman as she held a fork full of peas & carrots in suspended animation, eyes
darting/rolling in search of the nearest door...

Perhaps you might actually consider the facts of that incident before
re-imagining them according to your preferred prejudices or your
selective amnesia. The relevant posts that constituted that
disagreement are re-posted below in their entirety. I simply took KCKH
to task, as I would any other poster here, for ingratiating herself
with a pro-Bush war-mongerer, Darin Boville. So if my so-called
"lambasting" of Katharina for her error is a greater sin than open
support for mass-slaughter, which is continuing daily, then many
posters here are indeed beyond the pale. Katharina's lambasting of me
for taking her to task on this issue, and her resulting knee-jerk
withdrawal from this newsgroup, has in actuality resulted in more
damage to the newsgroup (the resulting departure of many other posters
- particularly *all* the British ones, in disgust at the sheer
aggressive - and to my mind criminal - war-mongering attitudes and
hopeless political ignorance [as manifest in Jackson's redneck
tirades] of numerous US posters here) than the abuse of all AMK's past
trolls combined.

Post by Tobasco
In my sense of decorum, influenced by innumerable details of development,
ranging back to who knows what level of cellular etiqutte practices in
primeval swamps to my own mother's occasionally stern, wordless
admonishments at the dinner table, this kind of assault is ---- out of the
question. Period.
But you see Padraig is not me. I am not him. I cannot level judgement in
any absolute sense on this person whose personality influences and
contingencies are beyond my ken.
Was it a fucked up thing to do? --- Yes.

No. The responses of other posters, yourself included, could be so
described, as they continue to be.

Post by Tobasco
Should the Irish renegade actually pay a bit of due to the 'old respect for
the other person' common decency convention? --- uhhh yes, I'd say so
Do I entirely disagree with the details of PH's issues and concerns re: what
he's on about? --- No.
Is this Padraig's 'human nature'? No --- Padraig was expressing an object
of personality in (IMO) a most abberant and aggressively bizarre manner.

Since when is rational and moral argument "most abberant and
aggressively bizarre"?

Post by Tobasco
Personality is not 'human nature' --- it is the nature of a human to form a
personality. Do you still consider this semantic hair-splitting?

Personality - or human nature - has nothing to do with it; these
scapegoat constructions are cowardly attempts on your and Jackass
Jackson's part to depoliticise the fundamental issues, relocating them
into the amoral rut of the personal subjective. And I have little
respect for anyone here (a growing quotient) who attacks those
actively lobbying for, and committed to, bringing an end to current US
atrocities abroad. [Jackson wants to know what to do? He could begin
by doing us all a favour and shutting to fuck up with his manic and
unhinged attacks on those here working for world peace ...].
------------------------------------------

Post by Tobasco
LOL! I didn't understand Padraig's response either. I was like- HUH?
[to use teen-speak for a moment.]

Well, if you had been following his obnoxious attempts at legitimising
Bush's mass murder in Iraq, if you had witnessed his numbing attempt
to appropriate Kubrick's films to justify his war-mongering stance, if
you had read his scurrilous dismissing of anyone challenging his smug
views as a "troll", you might have understood. But this newsgroup has
an acute and sad dose of chronic, willful amnesia. To see him wasting
bandwidth here with - in the light of his lethal views - his pathetic,
irelevant nonsense about his miserable birthday, but clearly it seems
that the majority of extremist posters here, including now yourself,
care more about this fucked up idiot than about the wider world.

So be it.

Padraig
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KCKH:

I am probably the least 'extremist poster' you are ever likely to
encounter Padraig.
I do not read every post nor do I follow every thread. I picked up
that it was Darin's birthday and that his spouse had bought him nice
OT presents!.
I thought,wisely or not, that your response to his birthday post was
a bit harsh that's all. I was trying to be light hearted about it. I
am very sorry if I have offended you , or anyone else for that matter.
I appreciate your posting these articles about the dreadful state the
world is in. I would not otherwise see them.and I have told you so.
The fact that i do not spend my time seeking them out for myself does
not make me a bad person, nor an uncaring one; nor do I think it
appropriate for you to include me in a group you describe as
'extremist'. Because in the way you use it, it's an insult.
I suggest, that if you are so dreadfully unhappy here,and you deem
all the AMK members -including me- to be gamma-minus morons and
extremist fuckwits, that you should maybe not participate any longer.

I am not defending anyones behaviour here. I defend myself.

and I think you are being rather rude.

katharina.

I think it's a tragic waste of time for everyone to be fighting here,
Isn't there enough of that going on everywhere else?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Sun, 11 May 2003 21:04:46 -0500, Mike Jackson

On Sat, 10 May 2003 19:12:04 -0500, Mike Jackson

You know Padraig, I'd drag you out of the bar and whump your ass good for
that one.

And what would be the case if you had directed such a dumbfounding
remark at Katharina?

Then someone should take me to the woodshed and whump my ass too.
Your conduct is unbecoming of an AMK poster and you know it.

Why don't you check back in when you've sobered up and have something worth
sharing? Like say an apology to Katharina and all the longtime posters who
you've just offended...

On the contrary: You mean the longtime posters who have just offended
me ... can't you learn to elevate yourself above oppressively racist
"Irish drunk" stereotypes and instead learn to locate the present
world-shattering drunkeness in your own backyard?

You ARE a drunkard Padraig.
You're drunk on anger and you're lashing out at us posters here with it.

That is what you are doing in this post.

I

Post by Tobasco
and others here understand your points and asking you to conduct yourself
civilly gets us more vitriol.

You don't understand my points: my last response to Katharina was
civil, and I reserve justified vitriol for those who throw it in my
direction.

Post by Tobasco
And don't come crying to me with being labeled with the Irish drunkard
bullshit because I've heard enough of it from one side of my mostly Irish
descended family. Drunkards are everywhere, every race and nationality.
I know you at least well enough here that you know better than to take that
bait.

No, rather than actually address the issue of racial stereotyping, you
have chosen to indulge in it further, rather than respond with actual
arguments in support of your contention that I intentionally set out
to offend Katharina, you simply went instead for the jugular ad
hominem "he must be drunk".

Post by Tobasco
I'm a US citizen and you know what I can do to stop George Bush whom I think
is the village idiot propped up by his corporate sponsors from running
Ripper-like on the world looting for those same corporate jackals?

You seem obsessed with the notion that you are being pestered to go
run out and "do" something, as if all issues can only be responded to
with some macho "quick fix" display of ruggedly "heroic"
individualism..

Post by Tobasco
I can do exactly squat.

You like saying this at regular intervals. If you repeat it often
enough you may also discover that you can say exactly squat, too.

Post by Tobasco
Except casting a vote against him in Nov 2004.
I'm not even going to bother reading the rest of the prattle in this post
because you're sidestepping the issue.

Well, its not prattle, and it is you who is avoiding the issue quite
spectacularly.

Post by Tobasco
I don't care how outraged you are, I don't give a shit how the world is
coming down around our ears (shitfuckinghowdy when has it NOT?) it doesn't
justify the anger you're shooting out in great fireballs around here,

Like the anger you're displaying here? In defense of your not giving a
"shit how the world is coming down around your ears"?

Post by Tobasco
especially at Katharina.

Why so? My response was totally justified; its just that you refuse to
see that because of your unwillingness to understand it, as with all
the other responses on this thread.

Post by Tobasco
You're complete inability to see that is bordering
on total denial or borderline insanity.

Oh I see it, all right ... and without the need to express more slurs
in order to do so. And it is your inability to see how ridiculous your
arguments are here that is unfortunate.

Post by Tobasco
We're all in a world of shit, we've always been in a world of shit, but I'm
going to have a sense of perspective about it.

Now that I would call a sense of perspective that likes being in a
world of shit

Post by Tobasco
Taking the shot you did at Katharina is something I would expect from LB,
not you.

What shot is that, exactly? You really think this is all some kind of
childish little game, Mike. I'm sorry, but if you want to live in some
ridiculous fantasy world, completely insulated from any sense of moral
responsibility, you've picked the wrong newsgroup to post at, the
wrong director to discuss. And I'll make absolutely no apologies to
anyone for taking the moral stance that I've been adopting here;
Katharina needs to perhaps recognise what this newsgroup is about and
stop imagining - along with many other posters here - that just
because she's Kubrick's daughter this automatically makes her immune
from all criticism, however justified. My criticism of her "LOL" post,
again was reasonable, not rude, was intended to be explanatory, not
insulting, had no other agenda than to inform. If, as she said, she
was unaware of the context, then that is indeed regrettable, but it
was then really unnecessary for her sudden swipe "maybe you shouldn't
post here anymore?" That is just unreasonable in the light of my
posting history here (and in the light of her subsequent unnecessary
announcement that >she< is not leaving), where I have never taken her
to task about anything she has written here before (on the contrary)
and defended Kubrick's reputation on countless occasions. But under no
circumstances whatsoever will I ever apologise to anyone for speaking
out against those who support or choose an indefensible, casual
indifference towards the current US mass terrorism. That is not
negotiable. Are you nuts? Like you said above, you seem not to care
anyway. So why all your anger here? What constructive purpose does it
serve?

Padraig
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Padraig wrote:

Well, firstly, it appears to me that there has been a glut of
misunderstandings and misattributions in this thread, including a
predictably hysterical over-reaction to the innocuous humour of my
previous "Ann Margaret" response to your post on the part of some
other posters, so I'll concentrate in the main on responding here to
your post above, seeing as my last one was so utterly - and
conveniently - misunderstood.

Yes, my response to Darin's at-one-level somewhat cloying "birthday"
post was seemingly harsh (and I'm left wondering how you would
evaluate his and others' harsh responses to many of my own posts on
more serious topics), but given the still-latent afterglow of his
recent discourse at AMK, including labelling me a troll on two
occasions - you missed those too? - because I had confronted his
unexamined assumptions both about Kubrick's films, particularly FMJ,
and current geopolitical events, I felt it was a justifiably
appropriate response. To recall, my response was:
---------------------------------------------------------
"Maybe you need to set up a blog..."

[though hopefully Kieslowski's three-colours trilogy will finally
signal to self-absorbed you the beginnings of a social conscience,
though I won't be holding my breath ...]
--------------------------------------------------------
The first quotation above was previously written by Darin as a foolish
"suggestion" that he directed at me in a post on the "Strangelove
Revisited" thread because I had responded in that thread to one of my
own posts with a critical addendum; so I re-directed his "suggestion"
right back at him in response to his little birthday ditty, precisely
because it was the latter itself that represented an exercise in
self-flattery, ostensibly innocuous narcism. And the second - to my
mind elementary - statement in parentheses should really be
self-explanatory (and I take it you have seen some of Kieslowski's
films? Kubrick's last published piece was a short intro to the
Decalogue scripts, after all) in the light of Darin's many posts
articulating his disinterested and conservative views on political and
social issues (and frankly, anyone who would claim, as Darin did,
about Kubrick's films in the "Kubrick and War" thread, that "I see not
an anti-war stance in these films, at least not of the anti-war vs.
pro-war variety.," has either completely lost the plot or is instead
attempting to push their own in-the-light-of-current-events agenda
onto Kubrick's work). There was a time at AMK when someone expressing
such an uninformed sentiment about Kubrick's art would be instantly
and correctly labelled as a troll by the then majority of long-term
posters, would be recognised as someone purposely provoking a
destructive flame war; but today, many of those posters have either
already departed or have given up in despair (mainly because of the
increasing preponderence of such reactionary views and provocative
flames), and it is anyone properly confronting such a silly
flame-inciting sentiment who is now designated the troll.

So Katharina, in this light, your choice of "LOL!" as a response to
the Darin/SeanDelgado posts that poorly attempted to ridicule my own
response to Darin's wish-me-happy-happy-birthday post above was not
for me particularly endearing; moreover, my equally "harsh" response
was made because I felt that such a post was not in the best interests
either of this newsgroup or of meaningful Kubrickean scholarship,
however innocently genuine and sincere it undoubtedly was. Instead, it
has served to give further ammunition to those many posters here
intent on - perhaps unwittingly - draging this newsgroup down below
their own level while rubbishing those posters who still desire to
maintain AMK's long-standing tradition of seriously discussing
Kubrickean scholarship, as well as relating the insights of his work
to the wider contemporary world.

For a director, half of whose film output directly and unflinchingly
addressed issues of war and human conflict, of "fighting" (F&D, POG,
Spartacus, Dr S, ACO, BL, and FMJ, at least), are you also suggesting
that because Kubrick was clearly unhappy with the state of the world,
with society, with the "flaws" in human organisation, that he really
"should maybe not participate any longer" in that society? That it is
inappropriate and OT to seriously debate the unhappy state of the
world here at AMK, that it is "a tragic waste of time for everyone to
be fighting here" just because there is more than "enough of that
going on everywhere else?" I'm more than confident that you don't
actually believe this, that in fact the conflict "going on everywhere
else" heightens - both morally and philosophically - the urgency, the
responsibility, and the importance of discussing such conflict ...
and a close reading of Kubrick's work on these issues provides a
laudable context for such an activity on this newsgroup, despite the
efforts of many to trivialise and censor such discussion [especially
when such discourse doesn't proceed according to their own
unreconstructed prejudices], while also trying to marginalise and
ostracise those active in such debate.

You mention that you have read many of the OT posts about the present
conflict, so is it too much for me to assume that you have also read
some of the numerous hysterical and ill-considered responses by many
posters here to those same OT posts, responses that, to borrow from
your post above, are best considered as "rude" and "insulting" to
anyone reasonably informed and concerned about the present disturbing
conflicts? And now on this thread another slate of ridiculously
slanderous posts calling me "pathological" and of having a "mental
disorder" for responding humourously to your above post; its hardly
new - for the more right-wing posters like Greg Lowry, Wordsmith and
others it seems to have become a crusade, their AMK raison d'etre, but
I'll not further legitimate their adolescent assaults by responding to
their euphoric idiocy.

Making knee-jerk fun of the genuinely serious posts here while
simultaneously adopting a faux-serious, defensive (and morally
indignant) posture about the trivial ones (newsgroups often being
characterised as having the intrinsic tendency to exaggerate one's
sensitivities) is actually the modus operandi of adolescent culture,
something many of the posters that I'm referring to on this newsgroup
appear to excel at further expressing, often then dragging everyone
else into the culturally dubious and hopeless cauldren of pointless
name-calling.

It does not have to be this way ...

Padraig
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Sat, 17 May 2003 09:36:38 -0700 (PDT),

Post by Tobasco
<And BTW, Katharina, an apology to this newsgroup (and everything it
stands for) >would< help get you out of the rut you now find yourself in
here. Fat chance.>
The ego involved in the above is beyond repair. Katharina has nothing to
apologize for nor is she in a rut.

Yes she does and yes she is (as with those other posters here who have
degenerated into a vile, clueless mob).

She has treated with self-serving contempt what this newsgroup has
always stood for, preferring to indulge in irrelevant smalltalk
nonsense (loathed by Kubrick) and stupid, ill-considered "LOL" asides
as though this newsgroup were some kind of adolescent chat room/dating
agency, always playing the pompous "Kubrick's daughter" card to sweep
aside all criticism while attempting to - as of now - ostracise anyone
who questions her attitudes and behaviour, in the full knowledge that
she can always rely on the newsgroup fanzine lapdogs for "support".
Unforgivable.

If she's really so genuinely and sincerely interested in being
"helpful" to posters here, then why her outrageous passive-aggressive
outburst directed at me - who has been posting here since long before
her arrival - (particularly her pathetic Glenna reference and
offensive "the usenet hot aired paper tigers") when I pointed out a
serious and misguided flaw in her lazy "air-head" reasoning?

Why did she have her FAQ on the Kubrick Site suddenly removed without
even bothering to condescend to an offer of any explanation to posters
here?

Why the >total< avoidance of any information of real substance about
Kubrick's work?

Why not come clean about all the pathetic untruths in relation to EWS
and AI, rather than distracting our attention away from such important
issues with trivial tabloid anecdotes?

Oh, but we're not permitted to ask such questions, as if this
newsgroup had suddenly become some kind of cosy PR extension of the
Kubrick Estate. Well, I'm sorry, but these are the questions that most
need to be asked, and if she refuses to cooperate or address them,
then her presence here is purely decorative. And mis-leading. That is
the hard truth, and no amount of dumb, knee-jerk self-righteous
indignation directed at me by you or others will have any effect here,
except to further embarrass you.

But what do you care?

Padraig
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Katharina writes:

You really don't like me very much, do you Padraig?

APart from my leg pulling quip about your post regarding Darins
birthday, I have never to my knowledge been anything other than
pleasant towards you and have told you how much I valued your posts
and that you had my vote.

I cannot tell you what a distinctly odd feeling it is knowing that
somewhere in Ireland, there is a man,whom I have never met, who hates
me. You were kindly enough disposed towards me when I was posting how
beautiful your country is and how much I enjoyed being there.
Is your disappointment in my lack of intellectual prowess, and
willingness to answer any and all questions in depth, to your
satisfaction, grounds enough to vilify me to such an extent?

<And BTW, Katharina, an apology to this newsgroup (and everything it
stands for) >would< help get you out of the rut you now find yourself in
here. Fat chance.>

She has treated with self-serving contempt

Have I? How am I self-serving. What on earth do you suppose I have to
gain from being here? I am contemptuous on no-one. It is not in my
nature. People upset me, make me cry even, [not you btw] but contempt
towards others hardly ever.

what this newsgroup has

Post by Tobasco
always stood for, preferring to indulge in irrelevant smalltalk
nonsense (loathed by Kubrick)

As far as I can see there has always been a fair amount of "small
talk" going on here. Gee I thought this was supposed to be fun! Or is
fun not allowed anymore in Padraigs world? and YOU WERE ALWAYS at our
table listening to our conversations were you. You "KNOW" Stanley that
well eh? Good for you. Why don't you answer all the bloody questions
then? How you have the audacity to tell me what Stanley did didn't
loathe is quite staggering.

and stupid, ill-considered "LOL" asides

Post by Tobasco
as though this newsgroup were some kind of adolescent chat room/dating
agency, always playing the pompous "Kubrick's daughter"

WEll I *am* "Kubrick's daughter" I'm not playing at it. honest. I also
am the least pompous person you are ever likely to meet.I know you
don't see it that way but I cannot help how you feel towards me.

card to sweep

Post by Tobasco
aside all criticism while attempting to - as of now - ostracise anyone
who questions her attitudes and behaviour, in the full knowledge that
she can always rely on the newsgroup fanzine lapdogs for "support".

Criticize away, you are entitled to your opinion,even if it's wrong.
There are people who are supportive of my being here, it's very nice.
I have no control over what other people choose to say about me. It's
nice to be liked. Is that such a fatuous sentiment?

Post by Tobasco
Unforgivable.

Why? What earthly reason do you have for despising me to such an
extent?

Post by Tobasco
If she's really so genuinely and sincerely interested in being
"helpful" to posters here, then why her outrageous passive-aggressive
outburst directed at me

It wasn't an outburst. You want outburst? I can give you an ouburst if
you like, but you wouldn't like it and I wouldn't lower myself. I
didn't read the whole sad darin Sean thing. I could care less why you
were all fighting.

- who has been posting here since long before

Post by Tobasco
her arrival -

You think maybe I should have asked your permission to join first?
Should I have taken an exam as to my qualifications?

(particularly her pathetic Glenna reference and

Post by Tobasco
offensive "the usenet hot aired paper tigers") when I pointed out a
serious and misguided flaw in her lazy "air-head" reasoning?

I'm an air-head in your opinion. Fine. Nothing I can do about that. I
was embarressed that I became embroiled in a war of words with Glenna.
I was going through some very difficult and painful stuff in my own
life and I lost it for a while. I'm amazed I'm even attempting to
reason with you, as you are dead set against me for some reason.

Post by Tobasco
Why did she have her FAQ on the Kubrick Site suddenly removed without
even bothering to condescend to an offer of any explanation to posters
here?

I don't have to ask anyones permission or explain why I do anything
esp with MY faq! Dear sweet Rod Munday, who put it together through
considerable effort on his part , understood completely my decision to
take it down.
But if I am such a nit-wit and my anwers are so trivial why in gods
name do you give a toss?
Do my Usenet manners need polishing or something?

Post by Tobasco
Why the >total< avoidance of any information of real substance about
Kubrick's work?

Like what for instance? The answers are in the movies if you care to
look . I'm not going to give you MY opinions. and I wasn't party to
Stanleys reasons for doing things a certain way or why. What kind of
information are you looking for?

Post by Tobasco
Why not come clean about all the pathetic untruths in relation to EWS
and AI, rather than distracting our attention away from such important
issues with trivial tabloid anecdotes?

What untruths? I have always told the truth here, *that's why I am
here* BUT I am not going to tell people here, in this public forum,
things that are none of their business or that it would be
inappropraite for me to tell.

Post by Tobasco
Oh, but we're not permitted to ask such questions, as if this
newsgroup had suddenly become some kind of cosy PR extension of the
Kubrick Estate.

ASk away, I don't have to answer. we're not in a police state yet.
This is HARDLY an extention of the estate you poor deluded man. and
cosy? here? In which life?

Well, I'm sorry, but these are the questions that most

Post by Tobasco
need to be asked, and if she refuses to cooperate or address them,
then her presence here is purely decorative. And mis-leading.

Decorative? gee thanks. Mis-leading? No. What would be the point in
that?

That is

Post by Tobasco
the hard truth, and no amount of dumb, knee-jerk self-righteous
indignation directed at me by you or others will have any effect here,
except to further embarrass you.

You are quite right Padraig. I give up. Your vastly superior intellect
and experience and linguistic skill have wiped me out. You win. Bravo
dear boy.
I don't need this shit.
I shall go,since that's your desire. [I know i said I wouldn't.but
I've changed my mind.] Never more to darken your bleak horizon.

If there are any Amker's who wish to ask me questions directly and
are prepared to read my idiotic flakey unhelpful answers, I am willing
to do so. I might not always be able to answer right away, or answer
at all as I might not know the answers.

So long Padraig, hope I never meet you.
Katharina
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Tobasco
You really don't like me very much, do you Padraig?

I don't know you on a personal basis, so your question here is
entirely academic. But I do know that you are familiar with my posts
here over the years, as I am with your contributions. Taking you to
task on a number of serious issues needing to be addressed about
Kubrick's work, something you clearly have no real interest in, has
absolutely no bearing on liking or disliking anyone (and even if it
did, is "tough love" such a totally alien concept to you?), so with
attempts to personalise this increasingly bizarre and unnecessary
discussion now discounted from the outset, I'll proceed.

Post by Tobasco
APart from my leg pulling quip about your post regarding Darins
birthday, I have never to my knowledge been anything other than
pleasant towards you and have told you how much I valued your posts
and that you had my vote.

Yes. But are you thereby implying that such pleasantries preclude me
from asking the questions that I have raised, the criticisms I have
offered? That I have no right of reply to perceived and actual
insults? That being pleasant takes mutually exclusive precedence over
hard questions and legitimate criticism? That we have "an
understanding"? I don't play that little game, and neither should you.

Post by Tobasco
I cannot tell you what a distinctly odd feeling it is knowing that
somewhere in Ireland, there is a man,whom I have never met, who hates
me. You were kindly enough disposed towards me when I was posting how
beautiful your country is and how much I enjoyed being there.

What has any of this to do with my questions? [And when did I state
that I "hated" you? You're taking all of this much too personally;
hasn't anyone ever criticised you? Or is all criticism unworthy,
however legitimate?).

Post by Tobasco
Is your disappointment in my lack of intellectual prowess, and
willingness to answer any and all questions in depth, to your
satisfaction, grounds enough to vilify me to such an extent?

Aren't you being a wee bit one-sided here? Aren't you suddenly
forgetting your own efforts in that realm? Again, can't you address
the wider questions rather than repeatedly taking refuge in the
personal subjective?

<And BTW, Katharina, an apology to this newsgroup (and everything it
stands for) >would< help get you out of the rut you now find yourself in
here. Fat chance.>

She has treated with self-serving contempt

[so we'll therefore turn a blind eye to what you have written in this
post].

Post by Tobasco
what this newsgroup has

always stood for, preferring to indulge in irrelevant smalltalk
nonsense (loathed by Kubrick)

As far as I can see there has always been a fair amount of "small
talk" going on here.

Sure, and it has now become an aggressively-defended crusade. Is there
nothing you take seriously any more, then?

Post by Tobasco
Gee I thought this was supposed to be fun!

Whoever told you that? Can't you have some real fun answering these
questions genuinely?

Post by Tobasco
Or is
fun not allowed anymore in Padraigs world?

I didn't see much of it in Kubrick's world either, when dealing with
such questions.

Post by Tobasco
and YOU WERE ALWAYS at our
table listening to our conversations were you. You "KNOW" Stanley that
well eh? Good for you. Why don't you answer all the bloody questions
then? How you have the audacity to tell me what Stanley did didn't
loathe is quite staggering.

Well, Kubrick's attitude on that subject is widely documented,
Katharina. Are you now officially denying that he ever expressed such
a view? That's news.

Again, you behave as though you presume to know everything about your
step-father and the Kubrick Estate; so why do you just feed us
adolescent fanzine material? Who are you "protecting", exactly?
Certainly not Kubrick's artistic legacy ...

Post by Tobasco
and stupid, ill-considered "LOL" asides

as though this newsgroup were some kind of adolescent chat room/dating
agency, always playing the pompous "Kubrick's daughter"

WEll I *am* "Kubrick's daughter"

Step-daughter, if we wish to be pedantic and factual. You continually
use it as leverage - as you are again doing repeatedly in this post .

Post by Tobasco
I'm not playing at it. honest. I also
am the least pompous person you are ever likely to meet.I know you
don't see it that way but I cannot help how you feel towards me.

Why do you continually draw attention to your social status, then? Or
don't you even know the meaning of "pompous"?

Post by Tobasco
card to sweep

aside all criticism while attempting to - as of now - ostracise anyone
who questions her attitudes and behaviour, in the full knowledge that
she can always rely on the newsgroup fanzine lapdogs for "support".

Well, its not very Kubrickian, is it? And you would actually be better
liked - in the Kubrickian sense, of course - if your need to be liked
was a little more subtle.

Unforgivable.

Why? What earthly reason do you have for despising me to such an
extent?

Because you're continuing to evade all the important questions. After
all, if you're Kubrick's daughter, as you like to point out, surely
you are in a position to comment on these issues? Rather than
vilifying anyone who dares to ask about them?

If she's really so genuinely and sincerely interested in being
"helpful" to posters here, then why her outrageous passive-aggressive
outburst directed at me

Well, you are fighting now, Katharina, and if you couldn't care less
about the underlying catalyst for this present dispute, how can I take
what you say in any way seriously?

Post by Tobasco
- who has been posting here since long before

her arrival -

You think maybe I should have asked your permission to join first?
Should I have taken an exam as to my qualifications?

Your rhetoric here is unbecoming of someone reluctant to "lower"
herself, so I'll assume its an attempt at humour instead :-). [though
your idea of AMKers taking an exam to gain admission to The House,
rather than simply parroting the password, sounds intriguing ...]

Post by Tobasco
(particularly her pathetic Glenna reference and

offensive "the usenet hot aired paper tigers") when I pointed out a
serious and misguided flaw in her lazy "air-head" reasoning?

Again, why the personal paranoia? Don't you think that when someone is
insulted (as above), that a response in kind is sometimes reasonable?
Or have you special diplomatic immunity, given your social status and
all?

Why did she have her FAQ on the Kubrick Site suddenly removed without
even bothering to condescend to an offer of any explanation to posters
here?

And I understood the reasons for that decision too, Katharina, just in
case you still believe the circumstances surrounding its removal are
some kind of precious secret. But that was not my question: it was why
your FAQ silently disappeared without >any< comment whatsoever here or
elsewhere, while all the supposed "fan" element at AMK never even
bothered to notice or comment either. Does this not tell you something
about the currency, about the public status of smalltalk? And we
might therefore reasonably ask, why did you put it up in the first
place? But of course you don't have to ask anyone's permission or
explain why you do anything, right? Talk about evasion! It's all just
such "fun" anyway, isn't it? Let's just have plenty more "fun", okay?
And "explain" nothing about anything, right?

I do hope you realise just how ridiculously condescending, offensive,
and disturbingly anti-intellectual such a "keep them ignorant" stance
that actually can be interpreted as (or was) on a newsgroup such as
this (though not anymore, obviously, given that the herd of lunatics
here now fully support and wallow in such anti-social nonsense).
Floyd's "I'm not at liberty to discuss this" springs to mind.

Post by Tobasco
But if I am such a nit-wit and my anwers are so trivial why in gods
name do you give a toss?

I do give a toss; its many of the other posters here who don't, or
haven't you noticed? First, you're well capable of much more than such
trivia. Second, as we can now clearly see, an exclusive preoccupation
with trivial non-matters creates a dumbed-down insulated milieu [of,
among other things, hopelessly vacuous celebrity deification] in such
a way that when anyone attempts to re-introduce serious discussion or
discourse, all hell breaks loose ... or did you miss Michael Moore's
Oscar-acceptance speech :-)?

Post by Tobasco
Do my Usenet manners need polishing or something?

Why the >total< avoidance of any information of real substance about
Kubrick's work?

Like what for instance? The answers are in the movies if you care to
look .

Should I just dismiss you for seemingly acting like an evasive twat
here? Don't you know anything about film cultural research? Do you
even care anymore? Its dumb, insensitive answers like that which
serve to further legitimise the widely-reported opinions of such
self-serving, hatchet -job professionals as Baxter and Raphael,
Katharina (as well as serving to overwhelmingly contradict your stated
reasons for posting here; and maybe if you cared to take a hard look
at Kubrick's films you might also begin to think twice about some of
the asshole posters with whom you like to practice your version of
"fun" at AMK). There is actually an enormous community of critics,
researchers, scholars, film-makers and others with serious interest in
such matters, not that the Kubrick Estate appears to give a damn at
this juncture, as you well know. But of course, telling us what
Kubrick eats for breakfast is crucial to an informed and
Kubrick-Estate-approved understanding of the motivations underpinning
young Redmond Barry's table manners ... and I hear Hello Magazine has
a vacancy for a celebrity-diet photographer ...

Post by Tobasco
I'm not going to give you MY opinions. and I wasn't party to
Stanleys reasons for doing things a certain way or why. What kind of
information are you looking for?

Why not come clean about all the pathetic untruths in relation to EWS
and AI, rather than distracting our attention away from such important
issues with trivial tabloid anecdotes?

Why is it "inappropriate" to talk about these things, Katharina? And
it is very much our business, thank you very much, and I do take
offense at such a ridiculous evasion. That you see no thorny moral
dilemmas, no serious artistic problems, no wider implications for
cultural production surrounding the making of those films [issues
which were discussed at great length at AMK on numerous threads at the
time], preferring to see them just as "business as usual" is hardly
being entirely truthful, Katharina, unless of course you genuinely
don't know anything about these "things" that are "none of our
business" and would be "inappropriate for you to tell," in which case
why not just say so? It is these "things" that most matter, Katharina,
not "correcting" what some AMK retard thinks of Kubrick's personal
lifestyle.

Oh, but we're not permitted to ask such questions, as if this
newsgroup had suddenly become some kind of cosy PR extension of the
Kubrick Estate.

ASk away, I don't have to answer. we're not in a police state yet.

You're certainly very policing, very police-state protective about the
above questions, which are a genuine public issue, these films being
in the public domain, and the public being fed transparently
misleading information about key aspects of their making which is at
best hilarious and at worst completely destroys the artistic
credibility of those films. The myths about Kubrick's personal life
are as nothing compared to people fucking with his artistic legacy.
Shouldn't that be your real interest and concern here?

And why the big hangup about some writers dismissing Kubrick as
"sexist", as a "loon" etc, etc; this happens to all film-makers [not
to mention AMK posters] - just look at the dumb, ignorant insults some
posters here are spewing out against Danish film-maker Lars Von Trier,
and the guy a feminist, for Christ's sake!

Post by Tobasco
This is HARDLY an extention of the estate you poor deluded man. and
cosy? here? In which life?

It is your own assumptions about posters here that are somewhat
deluded, Katharina.

Post by Tobasco
Well, I'm sorry, but these are the questions that most

need to be asked, and if she refuses to cooperate or address them,
then her presence here is purely decorative. And mis-leading.

Decorative? gee thanks. Mis-leading? No. What would be the point in
that?

The "point" is explained above.

Post by Tobasco
That is

the hard truth, and no amount of dumb, knee-jerk self-righteous
indignation directed at me by you or others will have any effect here,
except to further embarrass you.

You are quite right Padraig. I give up. Your vastly superior intellect
and experience and linguistic skill have wiped me out. You win. Bravo
dear boy.
I don't need this shit.

What shit, Katharina? Would it be anything like the shit ("I never
knew they stacked shit that high!") that I've been repeatedly
subjected to here by a rabble of AMK's shit-loving losers? You'd like
to experience some of that sometime, maybe? Until then, you really
don't know what shit is ...

Post by Tobasco
I shall go,since that's your desire. [I know i said I wouldn't.but
I've changed my mind.] Never more to darken your bleak horizon.

No, that is far from my desire [personalising again, Katharina], I
only would like, if at all realistically possible, for you to address
some of the above urgent questions instead of continuing to treat the
members of this newsgroup like ignorant little children, like obedient
house pets.

Post by Tobasco
If there are any Amker's who wish to ask me questions directly and
are prepared to read my idiotic flakey unhelpful answers, I am willing
to do so. I might not always be able to answer right away, or answer
at all as I might not know the answers.
So long Padraig, hope I never meet you.

That is not something I would wish on anyone, Katharina. Perhaps
you've taken to heart the sentiments of too many of the recent hate
posts here from the aforementioned barking AMK loonies?

Padraig

Mike Jackson

2003-11-05 02:35:42 UTC

in article ***@news.iol.ie, Padraig L Henry at ***@iol.ie
wrote on 11/4/03 8:01 PM:

<snipping a shit-load of loony raving on both ends>

Post by Padraig L Henry
Personality - or human nature - has nothing to do with it; these
scapegoat constructions are cowardly attempts on your and Jackass
Jackson's part to depoliticise the fundamental issues, relocating them
into the amoral rut of the personal subjective. And I have little
respect for anyone here (a growing quotient) who attacks those
actively lobbying for, and committed to, bringing an end to current US
atrocities abroad. [Jackson wants to know what to do? He could begin
by doing us all a favour and shutting to fuck up with his manic and
unhinged attacks on those here working for world peace ...].
------------------------------------------

Nag, nag Pad-raig!

What did you do for 'world-peace' besides be a drag?

I've got a posit for you.

When have we EVER had world peace?

Before the little homo erectus grabbed a bone around the water hole?

Let's hear what grand things you're doing for 'world peace' Padraig!

What's that my dim droogy? Best not to say more. Bedways is rigthways now,
so best you go homeways and get a bit of spatchka.

Let us give a moment or two to the angry Irishman, with his fist in the air
and his head up his hinder regions.

--
"The two most abundant things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity."
-- Harlan Ellison

Tobasco

2003-11-05 05:50:49 UTC

"Padraig L Henry"

Post by Padraig L Henry
Perhaps you might actually consider the facts of that incident before
re-imagining them according to your preferred prejudices or your
selective amnesia. The relevant posts that constituted that
disagreement are re-posted below in their entirety. I simply took KCKH
to task, as I would any other poster here, for ingratiating herself
with a pro-Bush war-mongerer, Darin Boville. So if my so-called
"lambasting" of Katharina for her error is a greater sin than open
support for mass-slaughter, which is continuing daily, then many
posters here are indeed beyond the pale. Katharina's lambasting of me
for taking her to task on this issue, and her resulting knee-jerk
withdrawal from this newsgroup, has in actuality resulted in more
damage to the newsgroup (the resulting departure of many other posters
- particularly *all* the British ones, in disgust at the sheer
aggressive - and to my mind criminal - war-mongering attitudes and
hopeless political ignorance [as manifest in Jackson's redneck
tirades] of numerous US posters here) than the abuse of all AMK's past
trolls combined.

Yes Mr Henry, I've considered the 'facts', as you so casually usurp the
term, quite carefully. Please support your accusation of 're-imagining the
events'. Your own postings state the issue quite clearly. You, of course,
cannot but persist in pressing forward your own Eichmannesque diatribes and
attacks here in AMK, twisting these 'facts' as suits your purpose. Of
course your own criminality, however so petty and misdemeanor in nature
remains well cloaked in your own blind spots on this matter.
CBS canceled airing of the Reagan biop today. Why? Because Far Left
writers seized control of the project and turned what might have been a
production revealing of the dark nature of the Reagan Regime into a
hyperbolic bash-fest that was not only libelous, but grossly inaccurate.
Your kind of writers, Mr. Henry. In fact, I see little difference in your
tactics, rhetoric and agenda from that of the Xian Right so Murdochishly
insinuated in global media these days. But of course you claim to hold the
moral high-ground - so it must be so. A pig more equal than the rest of us.
It is this very slathering rabidness of the Radical Left that has alienated
many Amnesty International (among several international organizations),
players -- most of whom are opting for alternate organizations or dropping
out altogether, rather than continuing to see their efforts constantly
betrayed and derailed by politicists who are little more than Far Left
neo-Trotskyites.
Really, Mr. Henry. Are your efforts in AMK on this matter much more than
pitiable shoutings on a small, fruitless ground? It's absurd. If you
really feel the need to broadcast this propaganda on usenet ---- why not one
of the abundant political forums? I have no solid idea why you do not
engage in a more politically active arena, but considering your
never-ceasing, bullying postures, I would have to at least consider
cowardice as a primary motive for your skulking here on AMK with these
political ruminations.
The hypocritical brow-beating you dealt kckh ( a woman simply not in your
rhetorical league --- and you goddamn well know it), escalated your status
to lofty heights on the cretin rankings. Mr. P. Henry --- Grand Prosecutor
of the Family of Kubrick in the courts of AMK!!!
Dosen't your lust for self-aggrandizement ever seem somewhat ill-fitting?
Not to mention compensatory.

Padraig L Henry

2003-11-07 07:34:26 UTC

On Tue, 4 Nov 2003 23:50:49 -0600, "Tobasco" <***@bellsouth.net>
wrote:

<evasive rant snipped>

Post by Tobasco
CBS canceled airing of the Reagan biop today. Why?

Its called *censorship*, Tobs.

Post by Tobasco
Because Far Left
writers seized control of the project and turned what might have been a
production revealing of the dark nature of the Reagan Regime into a
hyperbolic bash-fest that was not only libelous, but grossly inaccurate.

What, they organised a coup d'etat? Hilarious. Interesting how, in
your world, the victims of censorship are magically transformed into
its perpetrators.

Post by Tobasco
Your kind of writers, Mr. Henry. In fact, I see little difference in your
tactics, rhetoric and agenda from that of the Xian Right so Murdochishly
insinuated in global media these days.

A most unusual labelling for those who diseminate the documented
facts, Tobs, especially coming from someone like yourself , a
fully-paid-up member of the Far Right.

When my "agenda" involves protest, it is termed *Satyagraha*
(truthforce), the philosophy of non-violent passive resistance, of
non-violent direct action, as originally developed and formulated by
Mohandas K Gandhi during the period he spent in South Africa
(1893-1914). a strategy which Gandhi successfully employed against
that racist regime to overcome a law that effectively enslaved that
country's substantial Indian community.

Yes, I do indeed actively engage in such forms of direct protest,
against current US terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere, as do millions of
others, the only meaningful and legal and legitimate way of stopping
such brutal imperialist aggression. Indeed, a group of us will be
mounting - on December 6 - another mass blockade (having already
mounted previous ones, causing a number of airlines to pull out of
Shannon airport permanently) of the airport here (Shannon Airport in
the west of Ireland) that continues to be illegally used by the US
armed forces as its principal stopover point en route to the carnage
in Iraq. This year alone, over 120,000 US troops and assorted weaponry
have passed through that warport for refueling on over 1,300 aircraft,
in effect reducing the airport to an offshore US military base. All
illegal, both internationally (contravening the Hague Conventions) and
nationally (contravening the Irish Constitution). Worse, US troops and
their lethal weaponry have been spotted undertaking training
manoeuvres in the Irish countryside, in blatent contravention of Irish
neutrality laws (all such troops should normally be arrested and
interned for the duration of the Iraq war, as was the case with -
mainly German - troops caught in Ireland during WWII). Just yesterday,
184 US troops nearly lost their lives when the warplane transporting
them crash-landed at Shannon Airport, a tragedy averted - but
pridictably unreported by the censored US media.

Post by Tobasco
It is this very slathering rabidness of the Radical Left that has alienated
many Amnesty International (among several international organizations),
players -- most of whom are opting for alternate organizations or dropping
out altogether, rather than continuing to see their efforts constantly
betrayed and derailed by politicists who are little more than Far Left
neo-Trotskyites.

Fascinating diatribe there, Tobs. I see you're still seductively
imprisoned in the McCartyist paranoia of anachronistic cold war
rhetoric.

Actually, having had a close involvement with a documentary film that
has just been withdrawn from the Amnesty International Film Festival
in Vancouver, I think I'm in a position to offer further comment here.
The documentary in question, "Chavez - Inside the Coup," originally
made for Irish TV, recorded *as it was happening* the attempted
US-sponsored coup d'etat against the democratically-elected president
of Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez , in April 2002, the first film
ever to capture an actual coup as it unfolded (the camera crew
accidentally having been innocuously interviewing Chavez in his
Presidential Offices when all hell broke loose). The documentary has
since been broadcast throughout the world, picking up so many awards
that it was decided to release a feature-length theatrical version
(should be opening in the US soon), now named "The Revolution Will Not
Be Televised." This is the breakthrough film that Amnesty Canada, in
its confused, uninformed wisdom, has now banned .... a *very*
political act, as censorship always is. Below are some further details
about this little controversy.

Padraig

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - Why is Amnesty Not Screening a
New Documentary About the Failed 2002 Coup in Venezuela?

Today [on Democracy Now] we take a look at a controversial new
documentary about the unsuccessful 2002 coup in Venezuela. The film
titled, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" received a rave review
from The New York Times but the organizers of the Amnesty
International Film Festival in Vancouver have canceled a planned
screening of the film that was scheduled to open today.

Main opposition parties in Venezuela organized a petition against the
film and garnered 7,000 signatures.

The documentary tells the tale of one of the shortest Presidential
overthrows in Latin American history. On April 11, 2002, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez was removed from power by a coalition of
military officials and business leaders. But the attempted coup detat
failed and Chavez returned to office two days later.

The documentarys two Irish filmmakers Kim Bartley and Donnacha
O'Briain happened to be in the Presidential Palace both when Chavez
was removed and when he returned.

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" Excerpts of the new documentary
about the unsuccessful 2002 coup in Venezuela available at
http://www.chavezthefilm.com/

TRANSCRIPT OF RADIO INTERVIEW

AMY GOODMAN: First we're going to play a clip of the documentary.

Again, it's called "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."

[cheering]

NARRATOR: In February 2002, Chavez announced his plan to shake up the
state oil company and to put his own people on the Management board.
The war had begun.

[speaking in Spanish]

NARRATOR: The privately-owned Media began calling on Venezuelans to
demonstrate, suggesting that Chavez's attempts to control the oil
industry were a direct attack on their prosperity.

DEMONSTRATOR: He wants us to become a Cuba, he wants this to become a
communist country. There is no doubt about it!

NARRATOR: At the head of the opposition to Chavez were two key
figures: Pedro Carmona, the president of Venezuela's largest business
federation, and Carlos Ortega, head of the CTV, a trade union with
strong ties to the old political system. Both men traveled to
Washington to meet with high-ranking members of the Bush
administration and to discuss president Chavez.

GEORGE TENNET: ...of course its important because they're the third
largest supplier of Petroleum. I would say that Mr. Chavez - and the
State department may say this - probably doesn't have the interest of
the United States at heart.

MAN: I'm sure that all of us are going to be watching very closely to
see what goes on in Venezuela and with president Chavez, in
particular.

NARRATOR: That same day, Carmona called an opposition march to the
headquarters of the state oil company.

DEMONSTRATOR: This is a conspiracy by U.S. imperialism -- the C.I.A.
and the media are behind this dirty war.

[shouting]

NARRATOR: On the morning of April 11, the opposition demonstration set
out on its march to state oil company. Meanwhile, on the other sides
of the town, thousands of Chavez supporters have gathered outside the
presidential palace in a show of solidarity with the government.

[shouting]

Back at the state oil company headquarters, the leaders of the
opposition march have decided, in violation of the law, to change the
rules. The plan was to get the crowd to march on the presidential
palace.

[shouting]

DEMONSTRATOR: Chavez is a killer!- [shouting]

NARRATOR: We were outside the palace with the Chavez supporters when
rumors reached the crowd that the opposition march was on its way and
the mood turned to violent.

DEMONSTRATOR (in spanish): This is a conspiracy by U.S. imperialism by
the C.I.A. The Media are behind this dirty war.

NARRATOR: The opposition march was fast approaching and some in the
vanguard seemed ready for a fight. With thousands of Chavez supporters
still surrounding the palace a confrontation seemed imminent. Then at
about 2:00 p.m., we saw the opposition march arrive. The army tried to
act as a buffer between the two groups.

[shouting]

NARRATOR: We moved back into the heart of the Chavez crowds when all
of a sudden the firing started.

[sirens]

NARRATOR: We couldn't tell where the shots were coming from, but
people were being hit in the head.

[gunshots]

NARRATOR: Soon it became clear that we were being shot at by snipers.
One in four Venezuelans carry hand guns and soon some of the Chavez
supporters began to shoot back in the direction the sniper fire seemed
to be coming from.

WITNESS (in Spanish): One of the channels had a camera opposite the
palace that captured images of people shooting from the bridge. It
looks like they are shooting at the opposition march below, but you
can see them, they themselves are ducking. They are clearly being shot
at, but the shots of them ducking were never shown. The Chavez
supporters were blamed. The images were manipulated and shown over and
over again to say that Chavez supporters had assassinated innocent
marchers.

ANDRE CESARA, RCTV (in Spanish): Look at that Chavez supporter. Look
at him empty his gun. That Chavez supporter has just fired on the
unarmed peaceful protesters below.

NARRATOR: What the TV stations didn't broadcast was this camera angle
which clearly shows the streets below were empty. The opposition march
had never taken that route. With this manipulation, the deaths could
now be blamed on Chavez. Back in the palace, there was total
confusion. Nobody seemed to know what was happening or what
information to believe.

Chavez was locked in a meeting with his ministers in the presidential
palace, as they tried to establish what was happening in the rest of
the country. Although rumors were flying that channel 8, the state TV
station had been sabotaged, at around 9:00 p.m., the ministers were
able to broadcast live from the palace to the channel's Mobile unit.

REPORTER (in Spanish): This is channel 8 state TV. For officers who
may be confused by the media's lies, it was they who massacred us.

NARRATOR: At 9:30, the signal was cut. We now found ourselves with a
small group of Chavez's minister, cut off from the outside world. Our
only source of information, the private TV stations. We could see on
TV that the palace had been surrounded by tanks.

TELEVISION REPORT: ...so we ask those protecting the President not to
resist.

NARRATOR: At around 10:00 p.m., members of the military high command
arrived at the palace to demand Chavez's resignation. They would not
let us enter the room. Some time later, the first minister arrived out
from the president's office. Chavez was refusing to sign a resignation
and in response to generals threatened to bomb the palace.

CHAVEZ SUPPORTER (in Spanish): The C.I.A. is behind this. Everyone
knows it. We have proof of plans for a coup. They can't destroy
history.

NARRATOR: By this point, most civilians had been evacuated. Those who
remained knew that if the palace was bombed, there would be no way
out. At about 3:30 a.m., one of the ministers came out to talk to us.
Chavez had decided to hand himself over to the generals to avoid the
bombing of the palace. But he was still refusing to resign as
president.

VENEZUELAN MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT (in Spanish): It is finally
clear that this is a coup d'etat. The president has refused to resign.

NARRATOR: With five minutes left until the bombing deadline expired,
Chavez was led away.

[chanting]

NARRATOR: One hour later, Venezuela awoke to a new regime and to an
extraordinary TV moment in which all was revealed. TELEVISION

REPORTER (in Spanish): Good morning! We have a new President.

NEW PRESIDENT (in Spanish): I must thank Venevision and RCTV I must
say thanks to all the TV channels.

----------Back to Radio Interview--------------------------
AMY GOODMAN: And there you have an excerpt of "the revolution will not
be televised" -- and it won't be shown at this year's film festival of
Amnesty International. We are joined right now by Don Wright, who
organized the Amnesty International's film festival in Vancouver,
Canada. Can you talk about Amnesty's decision to, first, show this
film, and then, pull it?

DON WRIGHT: Yes. Thank you for that. We had our committee review the
film, along with dozens and dozens of other films for consideration in
our festival. We did not initially choose it for our festival, but a
film we were interested in was not available to us and so we did put
it in.

But we became aware that the -- That there were concerns about the
film and that, in fact, that unknown to us there had been a lot of
controversy around the content of the film and, in particular, the
polarized and partisan controversy that was following the film and
that, we felt, when we choose films we strive to choose films that are
nonpartisan and nonpolitical to reflect the mandate of our
organization. This one clearly was far more polarized and presented a
particular perspective that moved well beyond what we normally look
for in a film for our festival.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, I just want to clarify. This is Canada Amnesty
International, separate from Amnesty International in the United
States.

DON WRIGHT: Yes, it is. And the festival itself is in Vancouver. It is
actually a very small festival. We're really surprised by the amount
of attention that it has gathered. It's probably the smallest film
festival in Vancouver and the smallest -- A very small event to
attract this much attention. It's really quite taken us by surprise.

JUAN GONZALES: We're also joined here in our studio by Alexandra
beach, a Venezuelan-American who writes for "The Daily International
Review of Venezuela," which is posted on one of the main Chavez
opposition group's web-sites and she has written extensively on the
flaws of the documentary that Chavez opposition groups are claiming
rewrites history in favor of president Chavez.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

ALEXANDRA BEECH: Thank you very much.

JUAN GONZALES: Could you tell us your perspective on the film and the
concerns you have about it?

ALEXANDRA BEECH: Well, I first of all want to say that -- Well, it is
an honor to be here with you guys. I have problems with the film
mainly because of what it doesn't present, which is that the general
that was the chief of the armed forces at the time, Lucas Lingon,
announced a little after midnight that Chavez [speaking in spanish],
Chavez's resignation was requested and he accepted it and the
gentleman is still - Lucas Lingon is - The general is still a member
of Chavez's inner circle, of Chavez's cab nets and, you know, that
wasn't emphasized enough in the film. Also, the fact that the
opposition isn't represented.

And that set off -- His announcement set off a whole set of events,
including the fact that people like me were convinced that Chavez had
resigned. So one of the questions that needs to be explored is why was
a member of Chavez's inner circle that the president had resigned.
That had a huge impact on the country. The other thing it doesn't
emphasize is that Chavez activated something called a Plana Villa,
which gives the military discretionary action over civilians and
protesters and a lot of senior military officials had a big problem
with the activation of Plana Villa because that lets ordinary soldiers
use weapons of war against citizens and that is another issue that the
film doesn't emphasize. The third thing is the fact that the
opposition is presented as either a neighborhood meeting that took
place in June of 2000, women that were concerned for their safety over
getting defense training from this gentleman, the woman who's
obviously really crazy and upset and screaming about Cuba, people that
are only white. I actually brought footage with me of opposition
marches where, you know, where it's a large population. It's a lot of
people of all colors march in our marches that, you know -- And it is
not just whites versus -- And, you know, the other interesting thing
is that, I'm sorry, is the whole issue of oil.

That you have Tennet saying, well, there's always this is sort of
conspiracy about this is all about oil interests when if Bush is
connected to oil, oil interests have never have -- In recent history
not profit so much as they have under Chavez because a lot of --
Because a lot of the production has been handed over to oil companies
at really great rates. Obviously through Chavez's participation in
OPEC oil prices have been increasingly high.

So, to say, well, this is about oil interests, actually needs to be
explored a little further, especially when you look at what Venezuela
receives from oil revenues and how that gets split up.

AMY GOODMAN: Alexandra Beach, we have to break for a minute and then
we'll come back and get comment from the Eva Goliner-Moncaba,
executive director of the Venezuela Solidarity Committee in New York.
Still on the line with us is Don Wright, who organized the Canada
Amnesty International film festival in Vancouver.

Stay with us.

[Music Break]

AMY GOODMAN: Roy Campbell on Democracy Now!, "The War and Peace
Report."

I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. As we talk about the pulling of
the film "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" from the Canada
international film festival in Vancouver, on the line with us is the
organizer of that event, Don Wright in Canada.

In the studio, Alexandra Beach, Venezuelan-American who writes for the
"International Daily Review of Venezuela," which is posted on the main
Chavez opposition websites and the executive director of the Venezuela
solidarity committee in New York. You've come out strongly against the
pulling of this film "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" from the
amnesty film festival. Why?

EVA GOLINER-MONCABA: Well, I mean, first of all, this film is an
extraordinary documentary of human rights violations that occurred
during the coup in Venezuela that, in fact, were suppressed internally
in Venezuela as well as in international media due to a media blackout
internally in Venezuela, since the Media have control, the private
media have the primary monopoly on information. So, during the actual
events of the coup, which the film itself shows, what was going on
during the time periods when people were coming out into the streets
to support Chavez and their Constitutional president and government,
the media was showing cartoons and old movies. They weren't even
letting people within Venezuela who weren't in Caracas, in the center
of the capital, to know what was actually happening in the country.
So, I mean, when this documentary came out, it was very revealing and
insightful to people, to Venezuelans as well as the international
community who, in fact, to this day, are still confused about what
exactly went on in Venezuela. So, I mean, the fact that Amnesty
International until Canada, independently chose to include the film in
their festival and that they would pull it due to pressure from
petitions from opposition groups to Chavez and actually their
petitions outline errors they allege in the film itself, which really
aren't valid arguments, I mean, we find this to be outrageous, pretty
much. That Amnesty, which is a supposed organization that is
promoting, you know, human rights in internationally and that they
would consider themselves -- Well, they would consider the film not to
be about human rights, which is what we were told by them in Venezuela
and in Canada and the fact that they would say that they don't want to
get involved in any kind of a controversy or politics.

But I mean, I would venture to say that human rights issues are highly
political.

JUAN GONZALES: Well, you know, I'd like to ask Mr. Wright, as a
journalist, I'm well aware that in the days after the coup, probably
the single most televised image around the world in Venevision and
American media was that image of those, quote, Chavez supporters on
the bridge firing, supposedly, into a crowd.

And so when I first saw this documentary I was astounded by another
perspective of what had happened there. There's no doubt that
certainly on Spanish-language television here in the United States as
well as English language, that was a dominant image that still to this
day has come down in folklore or what Happened in that April coup. And
so I'm wondering, when you say that you think this particular film is
overly partisan for amnesty standards, if you could expound on that a
little more.

DON WRIGHT: Sure. I think I needed to clarify that the decision to
include the film and then to not include the film was very much a
local decision that we didn't feel we had the capacity to properly put
the film in context and properly examine the, and respond to the film
itself. We feel that it was an error for us to consider that film
based on the lack of information that we had about the circumstances
of the film. So that was very much a local decision by a small group
of amnesty members that are part of our planning committee.

EVA GOLINER-MONCABA: I just wanted to comment on that particular image
that was broadcast around the world that was used in Venezuela as the
justification for the coup as well as through international media,
that the journalists from Venevision has now admitted that the image
and that it was a manipulated image, that the voiceover does was, in
fact, inaccurate, that he had no idea of who the Chavez supporters
were firing at. And that it was later shown, through the video -- Or
through the film you see that they were firing actually at, you know,
the snipers who were firing at them from down on the street below and
from up on buildings above. And I actually brought a picture, you
can't see it on the radio, but I don't know if you could focus on
this, but it shows the metropolitan police in Caracas who were on the
opposition side with latex gloves on, with their firing guns. And they
were actually down on the ground firing up at the bridge, at the
Chavez supporters. This was actually taken by a photographer who
happened to be down on the street. Luckily was in that area and didn't
get found. She was later beaten by the same metropolitan police, but
not because they found her camera, luckily. So, these photos were
released and this actually gave the government a lot of proof on to
what exactly occurred during those events around Puente Laguna, which
is the name of that bridge.

And we would just question, as the government has as well, why would
they be wearing latex gloves?

AMY GOODMAN: Hmm. Alexandra Beach?

ALEXANDRA BEACH: I don't know the answer to that. But what we think
that the person who answered why they were shooting was actually the
gentleman in the vest. When he was arrested, one of the interesting
things that we have in Venezuela is that pretty much everything takes
place on camera. Everything in Venezuela is televised. And so when he
was being arrested, they asked him why he was shooting and he said he
was shooting to defends the revolution and to defends an ideology. And
so then they said do you regret it? And he said, well, I don't know.
So, to present this as them shooting in self-defense is really a
stretch of -- Really a stretch of what was going on. And also, you
know, with the issue of the snipers, you know, if they were standing
on buildings as many people have alleged, the buildings are on the
presidential palace were being guarded by Chavez's guards because of
the severity of the situation. So, if snipers had access to the top of
these buildings, it -- You know, and, again, I'd like the ask and I
would challenge here the government to investigate what it was. I
mean, it is the government's responsibility to investigate who the
snipers were. And to this day, we don't know who the snipers were.

AMY GOODMAN: Alexandra beach, just a question. Would you character
what Happened on April 11, April 12 as a coup?

ALEXANDRA BEACH: You know, your producer asked me that question --
Your producer asked me that question yesterday on the phone and I
think it is an important question and I would almost have to speak to
everyone involved to say yes or no. And my visceral reaction is that
it wasn't premeditated because of the irrationality of the events of
those two days. I absolutely don't agree and I don't know anyone that
agrees with what the interim government did, reacted to on those days.
Was ate military reaction? Yes. Was it a military reaction to a
chaotic situation in which people were dropping dead on both sides?
Yes. It was a military reaction.

AMY GOODMAN: And Carmona, his role? What about that?

ALEXANDRA BEECH: Carmona, I feel sorry for him, really. The guy is
teaching a college course in Bogata, Colombia, and I don't think he
has many friends because of what he did on that day. I dont' think I
can say a lot about him. Obviously he had no political experience
business in being in that presidential palace and that just shows that
it was -- I don't know what the American express is of [Spanish
phrase] you know, people were make decisions as events happened and
most of the decisions were extremely bad ones.

JUAN GONZALES: The thing that strikes me -- Latin America has had
conflicts, has had revolutions, has had polarized societies in many
countries over the years. But the astounding to me in this particular
situation is the role of the mass media, that in essence, clearly by
the -- by that televised shot the day afterwards, that the gustavos
uneros and univision were active participants, not just in terms of
reporting the events, but they were apparently participants and
conspirators in the decision.

And that's why when you say everything was televised, everything was
televised except perhaps the most important day of the events which
was the day of the coup itself.

ALEXANDRA BEECH: I actually have a little contention with that because
one of the things that we have -- One of the phenomenon that we have
in Venezuela and you sort of have to live there to understand why it
is a phenomenon, is the government can force privately-owned networks
at any point, any time of day to air what its content -- Whatever is
airing on state television. So between April 8 and April 11, Chavez
used this mechanism 31 times and then two times on April 11, he forced
networks to air his speeches.

Now, normally that mechanism is in place obviously for national
security. But Chavez uses it to talk about his daughter's turtle or to
talk about his sex life or whatever. So, on that evening, we were
watching television, those of us that weren't on the streets.

I have friends also on the street. But we were watching television.
When Chavez came on television and said everything was normal. Now
article 58 of our Constitution, which calls for [speaking in Spanish],
you know, if you want to translate that...

JUAN GONZALES: A timely and truthful Information.

ALEXANDRA BEECH: ...the networks used that to split the screen, had
Chavez talk on one sides and people dropping on the other. Then Chavez
immediately cut the signals of all the private television networks. I
think there have been sins on both sides.

AMY GOODMAN: Just speeding this up because we have one more guest to
talk about the issue of censorship and that is Steve Rendell, going to
another movie and that is the one that CBS has just pulled.

EVA GOLINER-MONCABA: Well, I think it is integral and imperative to
point out that the private media have a museum on information and they
don't ever broadcast any of the government's achievements, anything
about pro-government supporters, which is part of the reason why the
government has been forced to use their state channel and occasionally
on important -- During important events to use national broadcasting
method where they cut into private channels, which is something that I
think most countries have anyway. But Chavez doesn't use it
frivolously. That is a ridiculous allegation.

Tobasco

2003-11-07 10:18:49 UTC

"Padraig L Henry" >

Post by Tobasco
CBS canceled airing of the Reagan biop today. Why?

Its called *censorship*, Tobs.

What, they organised a coup d'etat? Hilarious. Interesting how, in
your world, the victims of censorship are magically transformed into
its perpetrators.

In some fog of Vedic-Atman inspired (deliberate or otherwise), delusion you
have, as always, twisted my point to serve your own ego-centric agenda. tsk
tsk
An objective, cool, dissection of the Reagan house would have been far more
potent in revealing the dysfunctional and malicious nature of the Reagan
administration than the cartoonish rant that resulted. Further, in
something like pragmatic awareness of the storm of opposition that would
inevitably arise from the Republicans, the producers of this piece should
have made this project >unassailable< from a perspective of libel or
misrepresentation. The facts would have been far more effective a satire
than hyperbolic exaggeration.

A most unusual labelling for those who diseminate the documented
facts, Tobs, especially coming from someone like yourself , a
fully-paid-up member of the Far Right.

The project was hijacked. The far-left has learnt it's lessons well from
the Limbaughs and other Foxes of the world. So much so that one can find
little difference between the two. S. Kubrick certainly found little
difference between these factions in ACO.

Post by Padraig L Henry
When my "agenda" involves protest, it is termed *Satyagraha*
(truthforce), the philosophy of non-violent passive resistance, of
non-violent direct action, as originally developed and formulated by
Mohandas K Gandhi during the period he spent in South Africa
(1893-1914). a strategy which Gandhi successfully employed against
that racist regime to overcome a law that effectively enslaved that
country's substantial Indian community.

Thank you for this sophomoric history lesson Padraig. Any further
condescensions for us today? In return, shall I offer you descriptions of
caste systems and the utter wretchedness of Indian cultural hierarchal
systems, which the English actually managed to strengthen in the short time
they were in occupation of that country? Shall we discuss Ghandi's
predilections for sleeping with young boys and girls (of lower social
orders, of course) to "test" his will as a sadhu? Shall we discuss Ghandi's
associations with Paramansa Yogananda and the published endorsement (by
Ghandi) of a yogic sect that centers much of it's belief system on the
purported teachings of a certain Babaji - a mysterious sage of the Himalaya
that has powers of teleportation, invisibility, lives on sunlight and water
alone and is over 2500 years old?
Ghandi was a great man of his people, his development of non-violent
confrontation was a life-long work of genius and he was probably as near a
real world saint-as-humanitarian as one will find. Doubtless your travels
in the Brahmin community have qualified you to speak intimately of the man
and his philosophy - is it to be Saint Padraig then? Sri Henry?
BTW, are your attacks on the posters here to be somehow considered
'non-violent'?
OIC--- 'direct'.
If you say so Mr. Henry.

Post by Padraig L Henry
Yes, I do indeed actively engage in such forms of direct protest,
against current US terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere, as do millions of
others, the only meaningful and legal and legitimate way of stopping
such brutal imperialist aggression. Indeed, a group of us will be
mounting - on December 6 - another mass blockade (having already
mounted previous ones, causing a number of airlines to pull out of
Shannon airport permanently) of the airport here (Shannon Airport in
the west of Ireland) that continues to be illegally used by the US
armed forces as its principal stopover point en route to the carnage
in Iraq.

Congratulations Paddy. As a veteran of 1968 Chicago, 1971 Santa Barbara
(Isla Vista), protests against construction of nuclear facilities throughout
the 1970's and gosh & golly ----- even a few visits to torture chambers
throughout SE Asia and Central America --- Oh yes, and some Sandanista
'pleasure palaces'----- I can say that yes, I've met several radical
leftists in my time. It is in meetings and directly working with radical
left activists that I've developed a true distaste for hypocritical postures
that, in fact, sabotage and undermine the very causes they so vociferously
espouse.
Tell me all about it.

-snipped infomercial that may be found on any number of newsgroups/websites
that are primarily devoted to politics/international affairs-

TY so very much for these postings Padraig --- In my benighted state, I'd
hardly have known of these issues. Oh someone invaded Iraq? My goodness,
we Americans should should do something about that and right soon.

Post by Padraig L Henry
Fascinating diatribe there, Tobs. I see you're still seductively
imprisoned in the McCartyist paranoia of anachronistic cold war
rhetoric.

And I see you're equivalently imprisoned in Schopenaur's rhetorical
witticisms. I should post S.'s list of debate tactics -- that way we could
simply refer to the line-number of the appropriate smokescreen
innuendo-as-defense-mechanism and go from there.

Post by Padraig L Henry
Actually, having had a close involvement with a documentary film that
has just been withdrawn from the Amnesty International Film Festival
in Vancouver, I think I'm in a position to offer further comment here.
The documentary in question, "Chavez - Inside the Coup," originally
made for Irish TV, recorded *as it was happening* the attempted
US-sponsored coup d'etat against the democratically-elected president
of Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez , in April 2002, the first film
ever to capture an actual coup as it unfolded (the camera crew
accidentally having been innocuously interviewing Chavez in his
Presidential Offices when all hell broke loose). The documentary has
since been broadcast throughout the world, picking up so many awards
that it was decided to release a feature-length theatrical version
(should be opening in the US soon), now named "The Revolution Will Not
Be Televised." This is the breakthrough film that Amnesty Canada, in
its confused, uninformed wisdom, has now banned .... a *very*
political act, as censorship always is. Below are some further details
about this little controversy.
Padraig

Having had a dossier cross my desk a few years ago describing and picturing
the noble Mr. Chavez' torture and interrogation facilities, I'd have more
than a few things to say about this as well. In fact I did. But I hardly
see the point in posting my report to AMK. Why, exactly, do you feel this
compulsion? More --- why are you carrying it forth --------- here?

Really Padraig, all these fundamentalist 'For Me or Against Me' lines that
you continually draw in the sand... maybe you need to do the Babaji tour or
something.

Padraig L Henry

2003-11-08 19:11:09 UTC

Post by Tobasco
More --- why are you carrying it forth --------- here?
Really Padraig, all these fundamentalist 'For Me or Against Me' lines that
you continually draw in the sand... maybe you need to do the Babaji tour or
something.

As a continuing apologist for US terrorism, perhaps you need an update
on its latest imperial-crusade manifestation, Mr Hardened Grunt ...

What most people are afraid of saying in public, because of the after
burn of 9/11 hysteria and the naive US belief in the righteousness of
their dear leader's wrathful god and sour apple-pie propaganda
(whatever the perfidy of his actions), is that the crude reality is
that Iraq is already "lost" as surely as Vietnam was lost long before
that ignominious helicopter retreat from the roof of the Saigon
embassy.

Dissenters from that shameless slaughter understood what winning and
losing in the American military industrial vernacular meant at that
time and it had nothing to do with the well being of the people of
Vietnam anymore than it has for the people of Iraq today. History
demonstrates time and time again that when America intervenes in other
nations' affairs it does so to protect "its" inalienable interests,
coveting that nation's resources, or setting up some client dictator
and seldom to protect the welfare of the little people whose country
it is supposed to be.

It looks like big bad Saddam Hussein, with a war chest of billions and
an endless supply of materiel and angry youth, had planned this war of
attrition long before geniuses Bush, Powell and Rumsfeld knifed the UN
in the back in their ill fated, unilateral rush to war. The assumed
victors have now become the hunted and are finding out what Saddam's
going price for every American or collaborator's head is in the
nauseating snuff movie that Iraq has become. What kind of bounty will
a freedom fighter collect for "taking out" Bremer or Greenstock, for
instance, or what was the rocket man hoping to bag with Wolfowitz's
scalp at the Rashid hotel? The cunning, despicable character
Wolfowitz, shaken but still threatening as he licked his wounds after
his sojourn at resort Rashid where the Machiavellian brain behind the
smart-bombs insanity finally got a taste of his own poisonous
medicine. God knows contract murder and bounty hunting is a crude game
but the Americans started it so of course that gives it the sacred
imprimatur in this disgusting Judeo-christian-muslim terror jihad. Did
gunslinger Bush think that Saddam never played cowboys and Indians as
a kid or had never heard of Jessie James or John Wayne?

The wily Iraqi despot lured the arrogant and unsuspecting invaders
into the warren of Baghdad back streets, deep into the tangle of Iraqi
ethnic, religious, social and political allegiances and now supposedly
sits counting corpses in his Ali Ba Ba's bunker as demoralised,
minority, working class American youth get picked off one by one [ we
might call this the Full-metal-jacket Effect] or by the helicopter
load on Saddam's home turf. He can patiently wait it out, Bro, until
the US public wises up to the scam and calls a halt to Bush's turkey
shoot. With Bush hoping against all odds that the turkey count doesn't
set alarm bells ringing too loudly before the next "election," he is
already raving about how every dead American is proof of how he's
still "winnin" the war that's supposed to be long over. Proof
positive, if that were still required, that the little guy with the
big mouth from Texas is way out of his depth in the treacherous quick
sands of Iraq. Already there are more jarheads dead since Cap'n George
did his flight suit Hollywood stunt and declared "mission
accomplished" than troops killed in Rumsfeld's brilliant, strategic,
masterful mass murder of innocent Iraqis [now almost 8,000, according
to <http://www.iraqbodycount.net/>] at the onslaught of his shocking
and awful virtual war on terror. Virtual at least for the Pentagon
ghouls who managed their slaughter from behind their sanitised,
Strangelovian war-room computer and radar screens, safe then in the
luxury and comfort of their Haliburton air-conditioned textile city
over the border.

But as in Vietnam, when killer Kissinger was squawking, the latest
gaggle of White House chicken hawks that started this anarchical blood
fest is now sandwiched in the middle trying to save face instead of
lives and won't even countenance retreat before the gush of blood hits
500 or 5,000 dead (whatever the present day McNamara body-bag bean
counters find tolerable and can euphemistically explain away to the
masses stateside) before the next "election". Of course, I am
referring to dead invaders, not the sinned-against people of Iraq, who
get neither obituary nor mention in the daily toll. As Tommy Franks
cynically claimed "we don't do body counts"; it seems these well paid
professional assassins learned something from "killing over 3 million
dead gooks dead" in Vietnam after all! In Vietnam, young "grunts" were
dying at the rate of 2,000 a month before it got the attention of Bob
and Betsy Flagwaver to wake up to the reality of that particular
fiasco.

When will the present Israeliamerican policy pirates accept that the
jig is up, or more to the point what will it take to snap decent
Americans out of their Bush, terror-induced stupor and demand a return
to some semblance of democracy in their much maligned land, and
finally wrest control of their nation's foreign policy from the mafia
interests that now openly dictate from the Oval Office? Will it take a
spectacular jackpot strike against US occupation forces in the style
of Lebanon to stop this, as was the case when the US last fought an
Israeli war and where over 300 US soldiers were blown to bits with one
bang in October of 1983? What will bring the US masses onto their mean
streets away from their unemployment, food handout and welfare lines
to cry halt to this outrageous murder for corporate profit that is
tearing the Middle East to pieces and sowing hate and vengeance
worldwide for coming generations of innocent US citizens? Will it take
a dirty bomb in Houston, Detroit, and Chicago to wake citizens up to
the pandemonium that their Bush putsch government is spawning globally
under its smoke screen "war on terror"? Beirut sure got Reagan's
attention and he couldn't get the hell out of there fast enough,
irrespective of how the Israeli lobby protested at the time; however,
he wasn't entirely dependent on Haliburton, Bechtel or the oil cartel
for his script, and Lebanon had none of that precious black goo that
has always got the greed-addicted Bush gang so wired and crazy.

One thing should now be obvious to all, and that is the attempted
removal of Saddam Hussein is having an even greater impact on regional
and world stability than the rupture of the Soviet Union in general
and the ensuing slaughter as Yugoslavia fractured and spun out of
Serbian control. As in the case of Israel and its Iron Curtain road
map to "peace", the Iraq disaster is yet another example that the US
has bitten off much more than it can chew, and antique Rumsfeld,
attendant scrabble meisters and Pentagon canon fodder merchants are
left looking bewildered every time they materialize before the press
with their latest deathly spin to the downward spiral of expectations.
When will we finally hear of leaked plans for the partition of Iraq
into ethnic enclaves more divided along pipelines than bloodlines? I
suspect the Republicans, inveterate high rollers that they are, will
soon try and cut their losses in their electoral bid to keep the Bush
machine in power and attempt to settle for Kurdistan and its natural
resources. With Saudi Arabia out of grace and apparently incapable of
stopping its own demise, Bush and Co are desperate. From Kurdistan the
US can hope to harass and try to contain the inevitable Sunni and
Shiite Islamic states that will sprout after its army of occupation is
routed. Whether this butchering of Iraq a la Afghanistan and Palestine
will begrudgingly be tolerated in the region or simply prove to be a
greater source of future trouble is academic.

Still, if it gets Bush off the hook in the short term and can offer
hope of a minimum of oil for his handlers, then I suspect it will be
Plan B for the corporate raiders now riding the back of the US
military like the vultures that they are. The Kurds could be the big
winners in this scenario, to Turkey's chagrin. However, their
vicarious oil wealth is already bringing to the fore their age old
aspirations of establishing their beloved, greater Kurdistan. That,
coupled with the likes of Ansar al-Islam, a decisive factor among
fundamentalist Kurd, guarantees no cake walk either for beleaguered US
forces hunkered down in "friendly" Kurdistan. The sullen Turks will
not willingly go along with a semi independent Kurdistan living off
the crumbs that the American oil companies would have to concede and
the Israeli style buffer zones the US war machine would be obliged to
set up as it bunkered itself in fortress Kurdistan in order to witness
the inevitable triumph of Islamic fundamentalism that it has spawned
throughout the rest of Iraq.

Either way, Pandora's Box is open and all of George's horses and all
of George's men can never put Iraq together again. And it all speaks
volumes for our so-called Western democracies that a pillaging,
plundering behemoth like the Bush US - all for the sole benefit of a
brutal and unscrupuless clique of warmongers such as Bush has
surrounding himself - can prey on a nation and people in the name of
God, patriotism and family values, and in the end achieve only anarchy
and inspire millions more with the determination to see the US in
flames.

As Rumsfeld and Rice mud-sling and wrestle in the Oval Office for the
dim one's attention, it looks like the Pentagon is giving itself
another 180 days to contain the bloodbath or surrender all hope of
keeping up the sham. For the sake of the rest of us that uphold the
rule of international law and respect the sovereignty of nations, Iraq
must win out against this charade and repel the aggressor so that this
war crime against innocent people stays unrewarded. Iraq, if it has to
degrade into civil war to decide its own post-Saddam destiny, surely
it should be allowed to do so on its terms and not those dictated by
weapons' purveyors and contemptuous criminals like Rumsfeld, who are
in no small part responsible for Saddam Hussein in the first place?

Even the most rabidly gung-ho yanks now have to admit that the reason
for this immoral and unjustifiable war and the ensuing unemployment
and impoverishment at home is due to the unbridled greed of the regime
now billeted in the White House. Blatant cronyism and treachery is
currently the doctrine supreme of an un-elected band of thieves,
propagandists and "advisors" who owe their allegiance to conglomerate
corporations' "great games" (8 billion dollars in juicy contracts that
the funders of Bush have already been promised to "reconstruct" Iraq
in Uncle Sam's image) in tandem with war criminal Sharon's demented
vision of greater Israel as regional pit-bull terrier. The rest of the
world, apart from opportunists England and Spain, with their own
history of colonial rapacity, refuses to tolerate US colonial
ambitions so thinly disguised under the act of sequestrating a nation
in order to "forcibly" install democracy, because inside every Iraqi
there's supposedly a democratic American trying to get out. Only a
moron like Bush could mouth such an obvious oxymoron and keep a
straight smirk on his mug. A land that the US never gave a damn about
in the past, for as long as Rumsfeld and his ilk could take advantage
of the thug who ruled there, is suddenly to be blasted to democracy
with the tools of violence and mass murder by a US president who stole
the elections in his own big-buck, two-party system "democracy".

Pre-emptive, state-sponsored terror must not be allowed to flourish
into full global anarchy just because the White House has been seized
by dangerous, fanatical bigots.

Either you are against this treason or part of it! :-) .......

JW Moore

2003-11-14 14:31:28 UTC

Post by Tobasco
"Padraig L Henry"

Indeed ... Paddy's fatuous second-hand diatribes against the US were easy enough to
dismiss until the inexplicable and unforgivable personal attacks on Katharina, who took
the abuse far longer than she had any reason to. Others have speculated on the origin of
this pathetic episode, but I won't bother. Like they say, no man can be reasoned out of a
position that he wasn't reasoned into in the first place.

~~Jack

Padraig L Henry

2003-11-14 15:35:03 UTC

Post by JW Moore

Post by Tobasco
"Padraig L Henry"

It is scurrilous posts like yours above that are destroying this
newsgroup, and indeed, making it impossible for someone like Katharina
to post here. The abuse I've been taking here from scum like yourself
for the most demented of reasons has no effect on me, and given that I
did not "abuse" anyone, it is sheer paranoia. On the contrary, she -
inexplicably - lamblasted me, and her continuing smugness about it all
in the face of the torrent of lunatic, unprovoked abuse being directed
at me by AMK's crazies speaks volumes about her true colours ... She
is being deeply offensive, and she fucking knows it.

Now piss off, asshole.

Tobasco

2003-11-14 17:00:35 UTC

MIRROR EFFECT

Post by Padraig L Henry
It is scurrilous posts like yours above that are destroying this
newsgroup, and indeed, making it impossible for someone like Katharina
to post here.

MIRROR EFFECT

JW Moore

2003-11-14 22:41:59 UTC

Post by JW Moore

Post by Tobasco
"Padraig L Henry"

And they say irony's dead...

~~Jack

Padraig L Henry

2003-11-16 17:20:56 UTC

Post by JW Moore
And they say irony's dead...
~~Jack

Certainly not, coming from the fundamentalist stooge zealously
demanding that Iraq must ...must ...must have weapons of mass
destruction, this reminds all of Paths of Glory's hysterically
possessed General Mireau demanding, that if his own French troops
"won't take German bullets, then by God, we'll give them French ones!"

And shure Iraq is crawling with WMDs now. One hundred and fifty
thousand of them ...

s_o_keefe

2003-11-05 06:21:20 UTC

I simply took KCKH to task, as I would any
other poster here, for ingratiating herself
with a pro-Bush war-mongerer,

Though, Padraig, the pretext is your concern & awareness over U.S. aggression
leverages lengthy personal offensives over a non-issue (e.g. KKH responding to a
[pro-Bush] AMK'er's SK-themed gifts).

exclusive preoccupation with trivial non-matters
creates a dumbed-down insulated milieu [of,
among other things, hopelessly vacuous
celebrity deification] in such a way that when
anyone attempts to re-introduce serious
discussion or discourse, <snip>

The primary issue with KKH in that thread, as I remember, was one of AMK being
"dumbed-down" by "vacuous celebrity deification". I suppose it has not crossed
your mind that if SK himself would have appeared on AMK, he would not be deified
as a famous celebrity by many? Of course he would have - this is without
question. Why would he then be chastised or unwelcome on AMK, all 'celebrity'
considered equal? I have a feeling, though, your (recognized) knowledge of SK,
and your political and intellectual presence on AMK, may have become intimidated
by KKH's 'name' celebrity presence. Your insulting offensive then began -
rather, a turf war - on whether an intellectual or a 'celeb-by-name' gets the
respect for authority on SK and his work.

Why is it KKH's lambasting of Padraig, and not a tirade against KKH, that caused
her (temporary) withdrawal from AMK? Your claim here doesn't add-up considering
that KKH took leave from AMK during LB trollings, and AMK obviously continued
on. Please consider that maybe you initiated an *intellectual vs. celeb* turf
war over knowledge on SK (which was leveraged by the moralism that
intellectuality and political awareness permits disrespect) and thus made the
intellectual presence on AMK appear unjustly small.

Best,

Steve

s_o_keefe

2003-11-05 06:38:13 UTC

Post by s_o_keefe
Please consider that maybe you initiated an *intellectual vs. celeb* turf
war <snip>

(One-sided, I should add).

Darin Boville

2003-11-05 15:47:02 UTC

Padraig,

You are a little man. You play politics here on the amk board rather
than in forums of serious political discussion so that you can pretend
to be a big man. You have confused wordiness and the pose of an
intellectual with influence and achievement. In "the arena" of serious
political discussion you are but another line-waiter, hoping to get in
the door for a glimpse of the big boys. Your political activism is to
"cut and paste." How the powers-that-be must tremble as your fingers
approach that keyboard combination!

You call me a "pro-Bush war-mongerer" simply because I do not
subscribe to your child-like, hand-me-down, radical leftist views.
Like a child you see only black and white, right and wrong, far left
and far right.

You attack others who disagree with you, like a child, thinking every
battle is the last, thinking that to raise yourself up you must put
everyone else down.

Padraig, you are a little man. You are politically impotent. You are a
child.

You are not a serious person. You are neither a doer nor an orginal
thinker, lost in the false sense of achievement provided by
particpation on Usenet forums. Life is slipping away and the great
wrongs you so loudly protest remain unchallenged by you.

It' time to grow up, Padraig.

--Darin

Wordsmith

2003-11-05 19:11:03 UTC

Padraig,
You are a little man. You play politics here on the amk board rather
than in forums of serious political discussion so that you can pretend
to be a big man. You have confused wordiness and the pose of an
intellectual with influence and achievement. In "the arena" of serious
political discussion you are but another line-waiter, hoping to get in
the door for a glimpse of the big boys. Your political activism is to
"cut and paste." How the powers-that-be must tremble as your fingers
approach that keyboard combination!
You call me a "pro-Bush war-mongerer" simply because I do not
subscribe to your child-like, hand-me-down, radical leftist views.
Like a child you see only black and white, right and wrong, far left
and far right.
You attack others who disagree with you, like a child, thinking every
battle is the last, thinking that to raise yourself up you must put
everyone else down.
Padraig, you are a little man. You are politically impotent. You are a
child.
You are not a serious person. You are neither a doer nor an orginal
thinker, lost in the false sense of achievement provided by
particpation on Usenet forums. Life is slipping away and the great
wrongs you so loudly protest remain unchallenged by you.
It' time to grow up, Padraig.
--Darin

Kinda makes you never want to have another birthday, huh?

Wordsmith

Darin Boville

2003-11-06 03:16:31 UTC

Post by Wordsmith
Kinda makes you never want to have another birthday, huh?
Wordsmith

Don't know about that but Christmas is almost here!

--Darin

2003-11-05 22:42:10 UTC

Padraig,
You are a little man. You play politics here on the amk board rather
than in forums of serious political discussion so that you can pretend
to be a big man. You have confused wordiness and the pose of an
intellectual with influence and achievement. In "the arena" of serious
political discussion you are but another line-waiter, hoping to get in
the door for a glimpse of the big boys. Your political activism is to
"cut and paste." How the powers-that-be must tremble as your fingers
approach that keyboard combination!
You call me a "pro-Bush war-mongerer" simply because I do not
subscribe to your child-like, hand-me-down, radical leftist views.
Like a child you see only black and white, right and wrong, far left
and far right.
You attack others who disagree with you, like a child, thinking every
battle is the last, thinking that to raise yourself up you must put
everyone else down.
Padraig, you are a little man. You are politically impotent. You are a
child.
You are not a serious person. You are neither a doer nor an orginal
thinker, lost in the false sense of achievement provided by
particpation on Usenet forums. Life is slipping away and the great
wrongs you so loudly protest remain unchallenged by you.
It' time to grow up, Padraig.
--Darin

Well said. My impression is that hysterical U.S. bashing on this
newsgroup is the main (only?) reason this Padraig guy gets up in the
morning. I find myself wondering how serious he really is. He just
seems desperate for attention. I have to confess, however, that I do
enjoy reading some of the articles he posts here, so maybe it's best
to just let him do his thing.

Mike Jackson

2003-11-05 23:21:25 UTC

Post by gm
Well said. My impression is that hysterical U.S. bashing on this
newsgroup is the main (only?) reason this Padraig guy gets up in the
morning. I find myself wondering how serious he really is. He just
seems desperate for attention. I have to confess, however, that I do
enjoy reading some of the articles he posts here, so maybe it's best
to just let him do his thing.

If he confined himself to merely posting articles one might otherwise miss I
would agree with that. I agree that George Bush is a leader out of control,
destabilizing the world with his private little wars and naked grabbing of
wealth for his cronies. What would be meaningful on that topic would be
things one could legally do to stop Bush and end the turmoil. Ranting like a
drunk in the town square isn't productive and that's what most of his posts
on the subject amount to.

It's the dust up he start for no logical reason with KCKH and a few other
posters I can't stomach.

It was completely unprovoked, and no posters a far as I can remember agreed
with his outbursts. Steve O'Keefe hit it on the head saying that he was most
probably threatened by what he perceived as KCKH's 'celebrity' presence on
the newsgroup.

He butted into a thread where posters were innocuously discussing a personal
birthday and proceeded to turn it into a matter of people chatting while the
world burned and further directed it to everyone here being indifferent to
the fate of mankind at the hands of savage Americans. Instead of seeing how
irrational it was, sucking up some pride and apologizing for it he has
plowed his reason under and continually escalated the situation.

My greatest anger with Padraig is he was once one of the best posters here.
I can recall a time when I looked forward to the stuff he posted about
Kubrick and drawing on a vast amount of cultural insight he could often
bring to it.

After 9/11 and the military buildups and Bush-wars started he became
obsessed with it totally, reminding me much of the way Lenny Bruce slid from
being a funny and insightful comedian to a raving self-interested loon. At
least Bruce had a legitimate reason for his personal decline at the end of
his life. He was legitimately being persecuted.

For Padraig it's all in his mind. And of his own making.

--
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the
difference between lightning and the lightning bug."
-- Mark Twain

Magic7Ball

2003-11-06 12:59:29 UTC

But his "thing" came at a price: K. Kubrick's active involvement in the
Kubrick newsgroup.

Mike Jackson

2003-11-05 17:44:06 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
[Jackson wants to know what to do? He could begin
by doing us all a favour and shutting to fuck up with his manic and
unhinged attacks on those here working for world peace ...].

Hey Padraig, what did you do for world peace today?

Where's the cut and paste article for today on the war?

Total lack of support for your looniness got you down big guy?

Aw cheer up; the sun will come out tomorrow, you can bet yer bottom dollar!

--
"Chess teaches you to control the initial excitement you feel when you see
something that looks good and it trains you to think objectively when you're
in trouble."
-- Stanley Kubrick

Darth Nub

2003-11-05 17:58:07 UTC

Idiot.

See you all in another few months.

Darth

No. The responses of other posters, yourself included, could be so
described, as they continue to be.

Since when is rational and moral argument "most abberant and
aggressively bizarre"?

Post by Tobasco
Personality is not 'human nature' --- it is the nature of a human to form a
personality. Do you still consider this semantic hair-splitting?

Post by Tobasco
LOL! I didn't understand Padraig's response either. I was like- HUH?
[to use teen-speak for a moment.]

Well, if you had been following his obnoxious attempts at legitimising
Bush's mass murder in Iraq, if you had witnessed his numbing attempt
to appropriate Kubrick's films to justify his war-mongering stance, if
you had read his scurrilous dismissing of anyone challenging his smug
views as a "troll", you might have understood. But this newsgroup has
an acute and sad dose of chronic, willful amnesia. To see him wasting
bandwidth here with - in the light of his lethal views - his pathetic,
irelevant nonsense about his miserable birthday, but clearly it seems
that the majority of extremist posters here, including now yourself,
care more about this fucked up idiot than about the wider world.
So be it.
Padraig
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am probably the least 'extremist poster' you are ever likely to
encounter Padraig.
I do not read every post nor do I follow every thread. I picked up
that it was Darin's birthday and that his spouse had bought him nice
OT presents!.
I thought,wisely or not, that your response to his birthday post was
a bit harsh that's all. I was trying to be light hearted about it. I
am very sorry if I have offended you , or anyone else for that matter.
I appreciate your posting these articles about the dreadful state the
world is in. I would not otherwise see them.and I have told you so.
The fact that i do not spend my time seeking them out for myself does
not make me a bad person, nor an uncaring one; nor do I think it
appropriate for you to include me in a group you describe as
'extremist'. Because in the way you use it, it's an insult.
I suggest, that if you are so dreadfully unhappy here,and you deem
all the AMK members -including me- to be gamma-minus morons and
extremist fuckwits, that you should maybe not participate any longer.
I am not defending anyones behaviour here. I defend myself.
and I think you are being rather rude.
katharina.
I think it's a tragic waste of time for everyone to be fighting here,
Isn't there enough of that going on everywhere else?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Sun, 11 May 2003 21:04:46 -0500, Mike Jackson

On Sat, 10 May 2003 19:12:04 -0500, Mike Jackson

You know Padraig, I'd drag you out of the bar and whump your ass good for
that one.

And what would be the case if you had directed such a dumbfounding
remark at Katharina?

Then someone should take me to the woodshed and whump my ass too.
Your conduct is unbecoming of an AMK poster and you know it.

Why don't you check back in when you've sobered up and have something worth
sharing? Like say an apology to Katharina and all the longtime posters who
you've just offended...

You ARE a drunkard Padraig.
You're drunk on anger and you're lashing out at us posters here with it.

That is what you are doing in this post.
I

Post by Tobasco
and others here understand your points and asking you to conduct yourself
civilly gets us more vitriol.

You don't understand my points: my last response to Katharina was
civil, and I reserve justified vitriol for those who throw it in my
direction.

Post by Tobasco
I can do exactly squat.

You like saying this at regular intervals. If you repeat it often
enough you may also discover that you can say exactly squat, too.

Post by Tobasco
Except casting a vote against him in Nov 2004.
I'm not even going to bother reading the rest of the prattle in this post
because you're sidestepping the issue.

Well, its not prattle, and it is you who is avoiding the issue quite
spectacularly.

Like the anger you're displaying here? In defense of your not giving a
"shit how the world is coming down around your ears"?

Post by Tobasco
especially at Katharina.

Why so? My response was totally justified; its just that you refuse to
see that because of your unwillingness to understand it, as with all
the other responses on this thread.

Post by Tobasco
You're complete inability to see that is bordering
on total denial or borderline insanity.

Oh I see it, all right ... and without the need to express more slurs
in order to do so. And it is your inability to see how ridiculous your
arguments are here that is unfortunate.

Post by Tobasco
We're all in a world of shit, we've always been in a world of shit, but I'm
going to have a sense of perspective about it.

Now that I would call a sense of perspective that likes being in a
world of shit

Post by Tobasco
Taking the shot you did at Katharina is something I would expect from LB,
not you.

What shot is that, exactly? You really think this is all some kind of
childish little game, Mike. I'm sorry, but if you want to live in some
ridiculous fantasy world, completely insulated from any sense of moral
responsibility, you've picked the wrong newsgroup to post at, the
wrong director to discuss. And I'll make absolutely no apologies to
anyone for taking the moral stance that I've been adopting here;
Katharina needs to perhaps recognise what this newsgroup is about and
stop imagining - along with many other posters here - that just
because she's Kubrick's daughter this automatically makes her immune
from all criticism, however justified. My criticism of her "LOL" post,
again was reasonable, not rude, was intended to be explanatory, not
insulting, had no other agenda than to inform. If, as she said, she
was unaware of the context, then that is indeed regrettable, but it
was then really unnecessary for her sudden swipe "maybe you shouldn't
post here anymore?" That is just unreasonable in the light of my
posting history here (and in the light of her subsequent unnecessary
announcement that >she< is not leaving), where I have never taken her
to task about anything she has written here before (on the contrary)
and defended Kubrick's reputation on countless occasions. But under no
circumstances whatsoever will I ever apologise to anyone for speaking
out against those who support or choose an indefensible, casual
indifference towards the current US mass terrorism. That is not
negotiable. Are you nuts? Like you said above, you seem not to care
anyway. So why all your anger here? What constructive purpose does it
serve?
Padraig
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, firstly, it appears to me that there has been a glut of
misunderstandings and misattributions in this thread, including a
predictably hysterical over-reaction to the innocuous humour of my
previous "Ann Margaret" response to your post on the part of some
other posters, so I'll concentrate in the main on responding here to
your post above, seeing as my last one was so utterly - and
conveniently - misunderstood.
Yes, my response to Darin's at-one-level somewhat cloying "birthday"
post was seemingly harsh (and I'm left wondering how you would
evaluate his and others' harsh responses to many of my own posts on
more serious topics), but given the still-latent afterglow of his
recent discourse at AMK, including labelling me a troll on two
occasions - you missed those too? - because I had confronted his
unexamined assumptions both about Kubrick's films, particularly FMJ,
and current geopolitical events, I felt it was a justifiably
---------------------------------------------------------
"Maybe you need to set up a blog..."
[though hopefully Kieslowski's three-colours trilogy will finally
signal to self-absorbed you the beginnings of a social conscience,
though I won't be holding my breath ...]
--------------------------------------------------------
The first quotation above was previously written by Darin as a foolish
"suggestion" that he directed at me in a post on the "Strangelove
Revisited" thread because I had responded in that thread to one of my
own posts with a critical addendum; so I re-directed his "suggestion"
right back at him in response to his little birthday ditty, precisely
because it was the latter itself that represented an exercise in
self-flattery, ostensibly innocuous narcism. And the second - to my
mind elementary - statement in parentheses should really be
self-explanatory (and I take it you have seen some of Kieslowski's
films? Kubrick's last published piece was a short intro to the
Decalogue scripts, after all) in the light of Darin's many posts
articulating his disinterested and conservative views on political and
social issues (and frankly, anyone who would claim, as Darin did,
about Kubrick's films in the "Kubrick and War" thread, that "I see not
an anti-war stance in these films, at least not of the anti-war vs.
pro-war variety.," has either completely lost the plot or is instead
attempting to push their own in-the-light-of-current-events agenda
onto Kubrick's work). There was a time at AMK when someone expressing
such an uninformed sentiment about Kubrick's art would be instantly
and correctly labelled as a troll by the then majority of long-term
posters, would be recognised as someone purposely provoking a
destructive flame war; but today, many of those posters have either
already departed or have given up in despair (mainly because of the
increasing preponderence of such reactionary views and provocative
flames), and it is anyone properly confronting such a silly
flame-inciting sentiment who is now designated the troll.
So Katharina, in this light, your choice of "LOL!" as a response to
the Darin/SeanDelgado posts that poorly attempted to ridicule my own
response to Darin's wish-me-happy-happy-birthday post above was not
for me particularly endearing; moreover, my equally "harsh" response
was made because I felt that such a post was not in the best interests
either of this newsgroup or of meaningful Kubrickean scholarship,
however innocently genuine and sincere it undoubtedly was. Instead, it
has served to give further ammunition to those many posters here
intent on - perhaps unwittingly - draging this newsgroup down below
their own level while rubbishing those posters who still desire to
maintain AMK's long-standing tradition of seriously discussing
Kubrickean scholarship, as well as relating the insights of his work
to the wider contemporary world.
For a director, half of whose film output directly and unflinchingly
addressed issues of war and human conflict, of "fighting" (F&D, POG,
Spartacus, Dr S, ACO, BL, and FMJ, at least), are you also suggesting
that because Kubrick was clearly unhappy with the state of the world,
with society, with the "flaws" in human organisation, that he really
"should maybe not participate any longer" in that society? That it is
inappropriate and OT to seriously debate the unhappy state of the
world here at AMK, that it is "a tragic waste of time for everyone to
be fighting here" just because there is more than "enough of that
going on everywhere else?" I'm more than confident that you don't
actually believe this, that in fact the conflict "going on everywhere
else" heightens - both morally and philosophically - the urgency, the
responsibility, and the importance of discussing such conflict ...
and a close reading of Kubrick's work on these issues provides a
laudable context for such an activity on this newsgroup, despite the
efforts of many to trivialise and censor such discussion [especially
when such discourse doesn't proceed according to their own
unreconstructed prejudices], while also trying to marginalise and
ostracise those active in such debate.
You mention that you have read many of the OT posts about the present
conflict, so is it too much for me to assume that you have also read
some of the numerous hysterical and ill-considered responses by many
posters here to those same OT posts, responses that, to borrow from
your post above, are best considered as "rude" and "insulting" to
anyone reasonably informed and concerned about the present disturbing
conflicts? And now on this thread another slate of ridiculously
slanderous posts calling me "pathological" and of having a "mental
disorder" for responding humourously to your above post; its hardly
new - for the more right-wing posters like Greg Lowry, Wordsmith and
others it seems to have become a crusade, their AMK raison d'etre, but
I'll not further legitimate their adolescent assaults by responding to
their euphoric idiocy.
Making knee-jerk fun of the genuinely serious posts here while
simultaneously adopting a faux-serious, defensive (and morally
indignant) posture about the trivial ones (newsgroups often being
characterised as having the intrinsic tendency to exaggerate one's
sensitivities) is actually the modus operandi of adolescent culture,
something many of the posters that I'm referring to on this newsgroup
appear to excel at further expressing, often then dragging everyone
else into the culturally dubious and hopeless cauldren of pointless
name-calling.
It does not have to be this way ...
Padraig
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Sat, 17 May 2003 09:36:38 -0700 (PDT),

Yes she does and yes she is (as with those other posters here who have
degenerated into a vile, clueless mob).
She has treated with self-serving contempt what this newsgroup has
always stood for, preferring to indulge in irrelevant smalltalk
nonsense (loathed by Kubrick) and stupid, ill-considered "LOL" asides
as though this newsgroup were some kind of adolescent chat room/dating
agency, always playing the pompous "Kubrick's daughter" card to sweep
aside all criticism while attempting to - as of now - ostracise anyone
who questions her attitudes and behaviour, in the full knowledge that
she can always rely on the newsgroup fanzine lapdogs for "support".
Unforgivable.
If she's really so genuinely and sincerely interested in being
"helpful" to posters here, then why her outrageous passive-aggressive
outburst directed at me - who has been posting here since long before
her arrival - (particularly her pathetic Glenna reference and
offensive "the usenet hot aired paper tigers") when I pointed out a
serious and misguided flaw in her lazy "air-head" reasoning?
Why did she have her FAQ on the Kubrick Site suddenly removed without
even bothering to condescend to an offer of any explanation to posters
here?
Why the >total< avoidance of any information of real substance about
Kubrick's work?
Why not come clean about all the pathetic untruths in relation to EWS
and AI, rather than distracting our attention away from such important
issues with trivial tabloid anecdotes?
Oh, but we're not permitted to ask such questions, as if this
newsgroup had suddenly become some kind of cosy PR extension of the
Kubrick Estate. Well, I'm sorry, but these are the questions that most
need to be asked, and if she refuses to cooperate or address them,
then her presence here is purely decorative. And mis-leading. That is
the hard truth, and no amount of dumb, knee-jerk self-righteous
indignation directed at me by you or others will have any effect here,
except to further embarrass you.
But what do you care?
Padraig
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You really don't like me very much, do you Padraig?
APart from my leg pulling quip about your post regarding Darins
birthday, I have never to my knowledge been anything other than
pleasant towards you and have told you how much I valued your posts
and that you had my vote.
I cannot tell you what a distinctly odd feeling it is knowing that
somewhere in Ireland, there is a man,whom I have never met, who hates
me. You were kindly enough disposed towards me when I was posting how
beautiful your country is and how much I enjoyed being there.
Is your disappointment in my lack of intellectual prowess, and
willingness to answer any and all questions in depth, to your
satisfaction, grounds enough to vilify me to such an extent?

<And BTW, Katharina, an apology to this newsgroup (and everything it
stands for) >would< help get you out of the rut you now find yourself in
here. Fat chance.>

She has treated with self-serving contempt

Post by Tobasco
always stood for, preferring to indulge in irrelevant smalltalk
nonsense (loathed by Kubrick)

Post by Tobasco
as though this newsgroup were some kind of adolescent chat room/dating
agency, always playing the pompous "Kubrick's daughter"

Post by Tobasco
Unforgivable.

Why? What earthly reason do you have for despising me to such an
extent?

Post by Tobasco
If she's really so genuinely and sincerely interested in being
"helpful" to posters here, then why her outrageous passive-aggressive
outburst directed at me

Post by Tobasco
her arrival -

You think maybe I should have asked your permission to join first?
Should I have taken an exam as to my qualifications?
(particularly her pathetic Glenna reference and

Post by Tobasco
offensive "the usenet hot aired paper tigers") when I pointed out a
serious and misguided flaw in her lazy "air-head" reasoning?

Post by Tobasco
Why did she have her FAQ on the Kubrick Site suddenly removed without
even bothering to condescend to an offer of any explanation to posters
here?

Post by Tobasco
Why the >total< avoidance of any information of real substance about
Kubrick's work?

Post by Tobasco
Why not come clean about all the pathetic untruths in relation to EWS
and AI, rather than distracting our attention away from such important
issues with trivial tabloid anecdotes?

Post by Tobasco
Oh, but we're not permitted to ask such questions, as if this
newsgroup had suddenly become some kind of cosy PR extension of the
Kubrick Estate.

ASk away, I don't have to answer. we're not in a police state yet.
This is HARDLY an extention of the estate you poor deluded man. and
cosy? here? In which life?
Well, I'm sorry, but these are the questions that most

Post by Tobasco
need to be asked, and if she refuses to cooperate or address them,
then her presence here is purely decorative. And mis-leading.

Decorative? gee thanks. Mis-leading? No. What would be the point in
that?
That is

Post by Tobasco
the hard truth, and no amount of dumb, knee-jerk self-righteous
indignation directed at me by you or others will have any effect here,
except to further embarrass you.

You are quite right Padraig. I give up. Your vastly superior intellect
and experience and linguistic skill have wiped me out. You win. Bravo
dear boy.
I don't need this shit.
I shall go,since that's your desire. [I know i said I wouldn't.but
I've changed my mind.] Never more to darken your bleak horizon.
If there are any Amker's who wish to ask me questions directly and
are prepared to read my idiotic flakey unhelpful answers, I am willing
to do so. I might not always be able to answer right away, or answer
at all as I might not know the answers.
So long Padraig, hope I never meet you.
Katharina
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post by Tobasco
You really don't like me very much, do you Padraig?

<And BTW, Katharina, an apology to this newsgroup (and everything it
stands for) >would< help get you out of the rut you now find yourself in
here. Fat chance.>

She has treated with self-serving contempt

[so we'll therefore turn a blind eye to what you have written in this
post].

Post by Tobasco
what this newsgroup has

always stood for, preferring to indulge in irrelevant smalltalk
nonsense (loathed by Kubrick)

As far as I can see there has always been a fair amount of "small
talk" going on here.

Sure, and it has now become an aggressively-defended crusade. Is there
nothing you take seriously any more, then?

Post by Tobasco
Gee I thought this was supposed to be fun!

Whoever told you that? Can't you have some real fun answering these
questions genuinely?

Post by Tobasco
Or is
fun not allowed anymore in Padraigs world?

I didn't see much of it in Kubrick's world either, when dealing with
such questions.

Well, Kubrick's attitude on that subject is widely documented,
Katharina. Are you now officially denying that he ever expressed such
a view? That's news.
Again, you behave as though you presume to know everything about your
step-father and the Kubrick Estate; so why do you just feed us
adolescent fanzine material? Who are you "protecting", exactly?
Certainly not Kubrick's artistic legacy ...

Post by Tobasco
and stupid, ill-considered "LOL" asides

as though this newsgroup were some kind of adolescent chat room/dating
agency, always playing the pompous "Kubrick's daughter"

WEll I *am* "Kubrick's daughter"

Step-daughter, if we wish to be pedantic and factual. You continually
use it as leverage - as you are again doing repeatedly in this post .

Post by Tobasco
I'm not playing at it. honest. I also
am the least pompous person you are ever likely to meet.I know you
don't see it that way but I cannot help how you feel towards me.

Why do you continually draw attention to your social status, then? Or
don't you even know the meaning of "pompous"?

Post by Tobasco
card to sweep

Well, its not very Kubrickian, is it? And you would actually be better
liked - in the Kubrickian sense, of course - if your need to be liked
was a little more subtle.

Unforgivable.

Why? What earthly reason do you have for despising me to such an
extent?

If she's really so genuinely and sincerely interested in being
"helpful" to posters here, then why her outrageous passive-aggressive
outburst directed at me

Well, you are fighting now, Katharina, and if you couldn't care less
about the underlying catalyst for this present dispute, how can I take
what you say in any way seriously?

Post by Tobasco
- who has been posting here since long before

her arrival -

You think maybe I should have asked your permission to join first?
Should I have taken an exam as to my qualifications?

Post by Tobasco
(particularly her pathetic Glenna reference and

offensive "the usenet hot aired paper tigers") when I pointed out a
serious and misguided flaw in her lazy "air-head" reasoning?

Why did she have her FAQ on the Kubrick Site suddenly removed without
even bothering to condescend to an offer of any explanation to posters
here?

And I understood the reasons for that decision too, Katharina, just in
case you still believe the circumstances surrounding its removal are
some kind of precious secret. But that was not my question: it was why
your FAQ silently disappeared without >any< comment whatsoever here or
elsewhere, while all the supposed "fan" element at AMK never even
bothered to notice or comment either. Does this not tell you something
about the currency, about the public status of smalltalk? And we
might therefore reasonably ask, why did you put it up in the first
place? But of course you don't have to ask anyone's permission or
explain why you do anything, right? Talk about evasion! It's all just
such "fun" anyway, isn't it? Let's just have plenty more "fun", okay?
And "explain" nothing about anything, right?
I do hope you realise just how ridiculously condescending, offensive,
and disturbingly anti-intellectual such a "keep them ignorant" stance
that actually can be interpreted as (or was) on a newsgroup such as
this (though not anymore, obviously, given that the herd of lunatics
here now fully support and wallow in such anti-social nonsense).
Floyd's "I'm not at liberty to discuss this" springs to mind.

Post by Tobasco
But if I am such a nit-wit and my anwers are so trivial why in gods
name do you give a toss?

Post by Tobasco
Do my Usenet manners need polishing or something?

Why the >total< avoidance of any information of real substance about
Kubrick's work?

Like what for instance? The answers are in the movies if you care to
look .

Post by Tobasco
I'm not going to give you MY opinions. and I wasn't party to
Stanleys reasons for doing things a certain way or why. What kind of
information are you looking for?

Why not come clean about all the pathetic untruths in relation to EWS
and AI, rather than distracting our attention away from such important
issues with trivial tabloid anecdotes?

Oh, but we're not permitted to ask such questions, as if this
newsgroup had suddenly become some kind of cosy PR extension of the
Kubrick Estate.

ASk away, I don't have to answer. we're not in a police state yet.

You're certainly very policing, very police-state protective about the
above questions, which are a genuine public issue, these films being
in the public domain, and the public being fed transparently
misleading information about key aspects of their making which is at
best hilarious and at worst completely destroys the artistic
credibility of those films. The myths about Kubrick's personal life
are as nothing compared to people fucking with his artistic legacy.
Shouldn't that be your real interest and concern here?
And why the big hangup about some writers dismissing Kubrick as
"sexist", as a "loon" etc, etc; this happens to all film-makers [not
to mention AMK posters] - just look at the dumb, ignorant insults some
posters here are spewing out against Danish film-maker Lars Von Trier,
and the guy a feminist, for Christ's sake!

Post by Tobasco
This is HARDLY an extention of the estate you poor deluded man. and
cosy? here? In which life?

It is your own assumptions about posters here that are somewhat
deluded, Katharina.

Post by Tobasco
Well, I'm sorry, but these are the questions that most

need to be asked, and if she refuses to cooperate or address them,
then her presence here is purely decorative. And mis-leading.

Decorative? gee thanks. Mis-leading? No. What would be the point in
that?

The "point" is explained above.

Post by Tobasco
That is

the hard truth, and no amount of dumb, knee-jerk self-righteous
indignation directed at me by you or others will have any effect here,
except to further embarrass you.

You are quite right Padraig. I give up. Your vastly superior intellect
and experience and linguistic skill have wiped me out. You win. Bravo
dear boy.
I don't need this shit.

Post by Tobasco
I shall go,since that's your desire. [I know i said I wouldn't.but
I've changed my mind.] Never more to darken your bleak horizon.

That is not something I would wish on anyone, Katharina. Perhaps
you've taken to heart the sentiments of too many of the recent hate
posts here from the aforementioned barking AMK loonies?
Padraig

Magic7Ball

2003-11-04 06:10:25 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
"Magic7Ball"

Post by Magic7Ball
I believe Mike was stating America's aggressive way of dealing with

matters

Post by Magic7Ball
is a direct result of human predisposition, in response to the notion
offered forth by Padraig that General Ripper and Sgt. Hartman invented
mass-murder. When will people realize blood-thirst is not a trait unique

Post by Magic7Ball
American culture?

And do 'believe' that you actually even understood my post?

Yes. If you disagree, then what did you intend your post to mean?!?!!??!

Post by Padraig L Henry
"You may think you know what's going here Jake, but you don't."

Then explain to me what is.

Post by Padraig L Henry
No, I'm serious folks ---- please let me in on this grand hermetic secret of
'human nature'. I'm simply discovering - finding a sense of wonder to walk
in. The posters tossing 'Human Nature' this and 'Human Nature' that around
like so many magic formulae and sure-fire recipes of enlightenment simply
amaze me with the breadth of wisdom they apparently carry about like so many
tricks in a magic bag.
Indeed Mr7Ball ---- please describe the view from such lofty heights as
you've attained on the high ground of ironic rhapsody --- will you come down
from the mountain Strauss a'blazing to issue your dictums?
OIC --- if you told me - you'd just have to kill me.
Just human nature huh?

My point was as plain as the nose on your face. Ad hominem attacks (and now
add arrogance, disparagement) are a form of uncivilized conduct, making this
discussion ironic.

Nothing more, nothing less.

If you disagree, kindly state how, because I BELIEVE you haven't so far.

Tobasco

2003-11-04 06:30:31 UTC

"Magic7Ball"

Post by Tobasco
And do 'believe' that you actually even understood my post?

Yes. If you disagree, then what did you intend your post to mean?!?!!??!

Post by Tobasco
"You may think you know what's going here Jake, but you don't."

Then explain to me what is.

Confucius say: If I give a man one corner and he cannot return with 3
others ---- I remain silent.
re-read the post 7Ball ---- if you don't see the satire... whether you
like/dislike (etc) it or not -- if not, then we can safely conclude that
you do not appreciate my play. Sorry about that (ok ok --- no I'm not)..

Post by Magic7Ball
My point was as plain as the nose on your face. Ad hominem attacks (and now
add arrogance, disparagement) are a form of uncivilized conduct, making this
discussion ironic.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Let me get this straight. It's ok for you to 'attack' me, it's ok for MJ to
'attack' PH. But the shoe dosen't fit so well on the other foot? Please
review Orwell. The equality part. Apparently recognition of your own
arrogance and disparagement is lost somewhere under your own nose.

and BTW --- this is an ongoing tete e tete that you're jumping into here;
something like 4 years worth -- I believe...

Magic7Ball

2003-11-04 07:07:51 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
"Magic7Ball"

Post by Tobasco
And do 'believe' that you actually even understood my post?

Yes. If you disagree, then what did you intend your post to mean?!?!!??!

Post by Tobasco
"You may think you know what's going here Jake, but you don't."

Then explain to me what is.

Confucius say: If I give a man one corner and he cannot return with 3
others ---- I remain silent.

Silence is not good for conversing or debating ... what do you think?

Post by Padraig L Henry
re-read the post 7Ball ---- if you don't see the satire... whether you
like/dislike (etc) it or not -- if not, then we can safely conclude that
you do not appreciate my play. Sorry about that (ok ok --- no I'm not)..

Yes, we can conclude that.

Post by Magic7Ball
My point was as plain as the nose on your face. Ad hominem attacks (and

now

Post by Magic7Ball
add arrogance, disparagement) are a form of uncivilized conduct, making

this

Post by Magic7Ball
discussion ironic.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Let me get this straight. It's ok for you to 'attack' me, it's ok for MJ to
'attack' PH.

I'm 'attacking' you to prove a point about 'attacking.' Now the irony is
out of control, isn't it?!?!?

Post by Padraig L Henry
But the shoe dosen't fit so well on the other foot? Please
review Orwell. The equality part. Apparently recognition of your own
arrogance and disparagement is lost somewhere under your own nose.

See above.

Post by Padraig L Henry
and BTW --- this is an ongoing tete e tete that you're jumping into here;
something like 4 years worth -- I believe...

Aha, so it IS personal ! I don't think AMK was designed for family fueds.
Letting emotions fuel discussion where logic should? You may have found
your definition of "human nature" after all.....

Tobasco

2003-11-04 07:40:36 UTC

"Magic7Ball"

Post by Magic7Ball
Silence is not good for conversing or debating ... what do you think?

I think allusion and the rule-of-thumb 'show, don't tell' are invaluable
means of communicating. Preferred, actually.

Post by Magic7Ball
I'm 'attacking' you to prove a point about 'attacking.' Now the irony is
out of control, isn't it?!?!?

What kind of 'control' are you enamored of? You don't have excusive proxy
on escalation of ironic counter/re-counter/re-re-counter chains of
exhaustion, do you?

Post by Magic7Ball
Aha, so it IS personal ! I don't think AMK was designed for family fueds.
Letting emotions fuel discussion where logic should? You may have found
your definition of "human nature" after all.....

What, precisely, was AMK 'designed' for? The founder of this ng, Geoff
Alexander, was a pretty chaotic kinda guy. i.e Whatever the AMK'ers were
doing was well ... what they were doing . The threshing floors of AMK yield
some interesting events when we take the gloves off. I see no conflict
between logic and emotion in any of this. Apparently you do...

What do you want me to do about that?
Is this some source of angst for you?
tsk tsk ----- Terry Gilliam builds stone walls to lose himself. Perhaps you
might...

Magic7Ball

2003-11-05 09:19:39 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
"Magic7Ball"

Post by Magic7Ball
Silence is not good for conversing or debating ... what do you think?

I think allusion and the rule-of-thumb 'show, don't tell' are invaluable
means of communicating. Preferred, actually.

I'd still say silence destroys these invaluable means of communicating...

Post by Magic7Ball
I'm 'attacking' you to prove a point about 'attacking.' Now the irony is
out of control, isn't it?!?!?

What kind of 'control' are you enamored of? You don't have excusive proxy
on escalation of ironic counter/re-counter/re-re-counter chains of
exhaustion, do you?

I don't think I was commenting as much on control of irony as I was on irony
present in this newsgroup.

What, precisely, was AMK 'designed' for?

I'd venture to guess AMK was designed for thoughtful, respectful and logical
discussion on all things Kubrick. I'd say this is reasonable and attainable,
aside from the trolls. The fact that KCKH left over a spat says something
about our group's social skills and character, and certainly comments on our
"intellect." I wonder if this is the only newsgroup ever to drive kin away !

Post by Padraig L Henry
The founder of this ng, Geoff
Alexander, was a pretty chaotic kinda guy. i.e Whatever the AMK'ers were
doing was well ... what they were doing . The threshing floors of AMK yield
some interesting events when we take the gloves off.

But this isn't a matter of chaos vs. control. It's a matter of civility. AMK
is supposed to consist of high-minded, intellectual debate. Instead, the
board is ridden with personal squabbles and vitriolic battles. I'm merely
pointing this out for other people's amusement (because it's fucking funny).
If Kubrick intellectuals lack the skills to bring peace to this newsgroup,
then who possesses the ability to bring peace to the world? It's not only
amusing, but also an argument for the "beast" within us all. My cynical
viewpoint is nothing more.

Post by Padraig L Henry
I see no conflict
between logic and emotion in any of this.

If you don't see how emotion is getting in the way of logic around here,
then you'd better take a closer look.

There's a small group of AMK posters who are miserable about the condition
of the world, and if you don't join them in their misery, regardless of
whether you agree with their points, they will stomp your guts out.

Post by Padraig L Henry
What do you want me to do about that?

Nothing!

Post by Padraig L Henry
Is this some source of angst for you?

No....more like mild amusement, as stated above.

Post by Padraig L Henry
tsk tsk ----- Terry Gilliam builds stone walls to lose himself. Perhaps you
might...

Maybe I'll ask Terry's close friend and producer Stephen Bridgewater on the
phone this Thursday (how's that for name dropping!?!?!?) if I can borrow
some rocks....

Tobasco

2003-11-05 18:30:01 UTC

"Magic7Ball"

Post by Tobasco
What kind of 'control' are you enamored of? You don't have excusive

proxy

Post by Tobasco
on escalation of ironic counter/re-counter/re-re-counter chains of
exhaustion, do you?

I don't think I was commenting as much on control of irony as I was on irony
present in this newsgroup.

And so we have mirroring of a mirroring of a mirroring of a mirroring -- ad
infinitum, IMO this is closer to accurately describing the renowned and
elusive grail of 'human nature' than most else that we've posted around here
of late. Right?
oh................

Post by Tobasco
The founder of this ng, Geoff
Alexander, was a pretty chaotic kinda guy. i.e Whatever the AMK'ers were
doing was well ... what they were doing . The threshing floors of AMK

yield

Post by Tobasco
some interesting events when we take the gloves off.

But this isn't a matter of chaos vs. control. It's a matter of civility.

I thought we were talking about 'human nature'.

AMK

Post by Magic7Ball
is supposed to consist of high-minded, intellectual debate.

It is? While I may tend to agree with this -preference- then what of
simple exchanges of informtion or small-scale observations or a quick
synopsis of a news item etc? Again - AMK is not really 'about' anything
other than Kubrick movies. And what are Kubrick movies 'about' anyway?

Post by Magic7Ball
If Kubrick intellectuals lack the skills to bring peace to this newsgroup,
then who possesses the ability to bring peace to the world? It's not only
amusing, but also an argument for the "beast" within us all. My cynical
viewpoint is nothing more.

hmmmmm I'll pass on wearing the sandwich board proclaiming the 'Kubrick
Intellectual' ironic insight of the day --- can I just sweep up after the
melee?

Post by Tobasco
I see no conflict
between logic and emotion in any of this.

If you don't see how emotion is getting in the way of logic around here,
then you'd better take a closer look.

But what of logic interfering with emotion?
"It's not so much in the 'think' of it as in the 'feel' of it."
S. Kubrick

Post by Magic7Ball
There's a small group of AMK posters who are miserable about the condition
of the world, and if you don't join them in their misery, regardless of
whether you agree with their points, they will stomp your guts out.

"Life is suffering."
G. Siddhartha

Post by Tobasco
tsk tsk ----- Terry Gilliam builds stone walls to lose himself. Perhaps

you

Post by Tobasco
might...

Maybe I'll ask Terry's close friend and producer Stephen Bridgewater on the
phone this Thursday (how's that for name dropping!?!?!?) if I can borrow
some rocks....

Good idea. Next time I attend sesshin with Leonard Cohen I'll ask about any
spare irons he has lying around...

Magic7Ball

2003-11-06 02:09:55 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
"Magic7Ball"

Post by Tobasco
What kind of 'control' are you enamored of? You don't have excusive

proxy

Post by Tobasco
on escalation of ironic counter/re-counter/re-re-counter chains of
exhaustion, do you?

I don't think I was commenting as much on control of irony as I was on

irony

Post by Magic7Ball
present in this newsgroup.

The element of human nature (whatever the definition) is brought up in
defense of the American people in this newsgroup, who are being lambasted on
a regular basis.
Atrocities are being committed everywhere in the world, yet we only hear
about George Bush. But I've come to realize you aren't necessarily taking
part in this, and I apologize for 'attacking' you in order to discuss it.

Post by Tobasco
The founder of this ng, Geoff
Alexander, was a pretty chaotic kinda guy. i.e Whatever the AMK'ers

were

Post by Tobasco
doing was well ... what they were doing . The threshing floors of AMK

yield

Post by Tobasco
some interesting events when we take the gloves off.

But this isn't a matter of chaos vs. control. It's a matter of civility.

I thought we were talking about 'human nature'.

Kubrick's films explore the 200 million year old reptilian section of our
brain: the part that gives us instinctual and ritualistic impulses,
concerned with fundamental needs such as survival, physical maintenance,
dominance, preening and mating. These impulses are what drive our leaders to
make the decisions they do, like, oh, say......invade Iraq. The point is
that our leaders, including all of us here, cannot escape these fundamental
impulses. As a result, peace, or civility, can remain only as a concept,
from the smallest scales (AMK), to the largest (Earth).

Post by Padraig L Henry
hmmmmm I'll pass on wearing the sandwich board proclaiming the 'Kubrick
Intellectual' ironic insight of the day --- can I just sweep up after the
melee?

Well, it's my point, no matter how direct it is. However, if the point is so
painfully simple and obvious, as you seem to suggest, then why do others
behave as if it weren't true? And don't be distrustful of
straightforwardness. Sometimes sandwhich boards get the point across clearly
and quickly.

Post by Tobasco
I see no conflict
between logic and emotion in any of this.

If you don't see how emotion is getting in the way of logic around here,
then you'd better take a closer look.

But what of logic interfering with emotion?
"It's not so much in the 'think' of it as in the 'feel' of it."
S. Kubrick

"People don't ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather have
one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts." - Robert Keith
Leavitt

"Life is suffering."
G. Siddhartha

Yes, we all learned this in our late teens, when we realized there is no
such thing as justice. But most of us have moved on and learned how to deal
with it.

I know my 'attack' on you has evolved into something else that I am more
concerned with, and many of these points don't apply to you, so I humbly
apologize for making you the middleman.

Tobasco

2003-11-04 06:37:10 UTC

p.s.

Of course it's ironic. That would be...

Mike Jackson

2003-11-14 17:57:04 UTC

Post by JW Moore

Katharina's lambasting of me for taking her to task on this issue, and her
resulting knee-jerk withdrawal from this newsgroup, has in actuality
resulted in more damage to the newsgroup (the resulting departure of many
other posters - particularly *all* the British ones, in disgust at the
sheer aggressive - and to my mind criminal - war-mongering attitudes and
hopeless political ignorance [as manifest in Jackson's redneck tirades] of
numerous US posters here) than the abuse of all AMK's past trolls combined.

Are my tirades really that redneck?

Post by JW Moore
Indeed ... Paddy's fatuous second-hand diatribes against the US were easy
enough to dismiss until the inexplicable and unforgivable personal attacks on
Katharina, who took the abuse far longer than she had any reason to. Others
have speculated on the origin of this pathetic episode, but I won't bother.
Like they say, no man can be reasoned out of a position that he wasn't
reasoned into in the first place.
~~Jack

Well said.

And now the lunatic rebuttal;

Post by Padraig L Henry
It is scurrilous posts like yours above that are destroying this
newsgroup, and indeed, making it impossible for someone like Katharina
to post here. The abuse I've been taking here from scum like yourself
for the most demented of reasons has no effect on me, and given that I
did not "abuse" anyone, it is sheer paranoia. On the contrary, she -
inexplicably - lamblasted me, and her continuing smugness about it all
in the face of the torrent of lunatic, unprovoked abuse being directed
at me by AMK's crazies speaks volumes about her true colours ... She
is being deeply offensive, and she fucking knows it.
Now piss off, asshole.

I would like to know who your supporters are here Padraig?

Who is it that is holding this newsgroup to your high standard of reposting
web and newspaper articles that raises this place to a high level of
discourse?

--
Every time I look at you I am more convinced of Darwin's theory.

Padraig L Henry

2003-11-16 17:20:53 UTC

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 11:57:04 -0600, Mike Jackson

Post by Mike Jackson
Every time I look at you I am more convinced of Darwin's theory.

Perhaps, given your irredeemably manic embrace of regressively
reductive *social* Darwinism - a reactionary political ideology as
opposed to a progressive scientific theory - you might nevertheless
occasionally attempt to confine your frenetic newsgroup faecal
discharges to your bloated ass instead of your slobbering gob, and
spare us all from the paradoxical embarrassment.

Mike Jackson

2003-11-16 18:28:45 UTC

Post by Padraig L Henry
On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 11:57:04 -0600, Mike Jackson

Post by Mike Jackson
Every time I look at you I am more convinced of Darwin's theory.

And you asshole don't have one friend that I can see in this newsgroup.

I see no one that rushes to your defense.
Where are your defenders Padraig?
Who will join you and be your droogies?

Well, I don't see anyone lining up for you brand of the old ultra-soap box.

Personally if you are like this in your day to day life I can't imagine who
would miss you if you stand in front of a passing lorry and snuff it.

--
"Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first
instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what is I was an ant, and she fell
on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny."
-- "Deep Thoughts" by Jack Handey

kelpzoidzl

2015-05-03 21:52:21 UTC