Mister Bluskye and Chryselephant Man (Tweetantho 9)

Warning: The section about Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas shooting contains graphic material.

Sep-Nov 2017

In my teens horror films would show children being afraid but not children being mutilated, like 5-year old Georgie in It (2017) by Andy Muschietti. Pushing the envelope. I try hard but I can’t think of a horror classic depicting such “child gore.” If you know of examples, please let me know.

[Some critics have negatively reviewed the film, which would not be scary enough for them. I don’t really know what a scary movie is because I haven’t seen any since I was fifteen years old or something like that+++. But I have kept watching horror movies once in a while and I’m surprised none of these critics seem to notice that child gore – a child being dismembered on the screen – is something unusual. (I haven’t read all critics, though, so again let me know.)]

+++[I know my joke, the underlying assumption that if the film doesn’t scare the critics some other films must scare them, is rather flat. Of course, what they mean is that a film will or will not scare your girlfriend, as you must select a film that will scare her to watch with her in order to put her in the right emotional state.]

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When U.S. wanted a Canal and Colombia refused their conditions, U.S. created Panama from a Colombian province with the help of a few local politicians who called themselves nationalists. Think of it for a moment: Panamanian nationalists… Sardines and the Shark.

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Climate change has been real for at least several hundreds of centuries: It explains the existence of Sahara in regions where according to cave paintings were green meadows in former times, and why now Spain’s a desert for the most part (cf Ignacio Olagüe).

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Get ready for the bots tweeting endless lists of #280characters hashtags => Conspiracy of the Bots

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All the village idiots this side of the Pyreneans [in French territory] will want to join the great medieval state of Catalunya la vella, of course. Not that I care. You may be smart mercachifles on your side but on this side they’re backward cagots. Care for them. Good riddance.

–Push Fashísts back the other side of the Pyreneans! Wait… they’re Catalógs there too. Si, Perpinyi la vella! A nóstros! Grosso Catalunya!

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Nothing can justify the brutality of the Spanish gov against Catalans trying to vote. I call for global condemnation. (Birgitta Jonsdonttir, Icelander ‘poetician’)

You should write a poemician about it.

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Small nations are like small towns: stuffy. With a bigger parasite strata of politicians – more politicians per citizens. (One figure: about 1 French out of 100 is an elected representative, and it’s not even a small country, expect for, as to now, her influence.)

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[After Oct 1st Las Vegas Shooting] According to some, now any mass shooter is a terrorist, whatever their motivation. Pic: Terrorists Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold #Columbine

Mass shootings in U.S. started as freshman rage, ain’t it so?

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This deranged terrorist disrupted, traumatized, and terrorized the lives of thousands of people. Killed dozens! Call it what it is.

MDT (Mentally Deranged Terrorism)?

You’ll have to listen to the pundits this time: Rename the classic Texas Chainsaw Terrorism.

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If Las Vegas shooter used banned weapons, taking his case to call for a ban on weapons is kiddish.

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Reference French newspaper Le Monde this afternoon, with date Oct 3d, on p.12, “Las Vegas Shooting: at least 2 dead” Bravo! [real figure, already circulating on the Web at that hour, was 58+] Next body count by Le Monde in about 24 hours.

[10-15 days later] Las Vegas death toll’s still 59. Only one died with some delay, a couple of days after the shooting. 59. Seems like psychological marketing: $5.99.

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The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots. Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer which the NRA [National Rifle Association] wants to meake easier to get. (Hillary Clinton)

Can you put a silencer on an automatic machine gun? [A sarcastic question]

Yes, but they are not effective with sustained fire. (Mag dump after mag dump)

Am I correct to infer that if Stephen Paddock had put a silencer on his automatic gun he wouldn’t have made as many casualties, because if he had wanted his silencer to be effective while shooting he couldn’t have made sustained fire on the crowd? In other words, is it true that if Stephen Paddock had put a silencer on his machine gun he would have made more deaths, or is it a preposterous assumption?

I think he would have done poorly because, to begin with, the crowd would have fled by contagion with the first bodies falling down. The crowd didn’t flee “at the sound of gunshots”: people thought they were crackers (as several witnesses said). Falling bodies and contagion made the crowd flee.

He would have ran the risk of the silencer overheating and possibly melting from the fully automatic fire.

Thank you. Is it correct to infer that HRC has no clue what she’s talking about?

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CBS executive fired for saying on Facebook “I’m actually not even sympathetic [with Las Vegas victims] because country music fans often are Republican gun toters.”

If she ends up with a better position in another society of the same group, it will be a promotion, actually.

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Pictures of Stephen Paddock’s body in his Las Vegas hotel room

The corpse has a foot under a gun (elevated by a bipod). How can one fall under a gun? Did the body fall and then slide?

Did he shoot himself with this machine gun having bipod?

I’m really intrigued by the position of the gun above his left foot. For one, it has to be the weapon he killed himself with (as he can’t have fallen under it), but I try to figure how Stephen Paddock could fall on his back in one direction and the gun could fall on its bipod in the opposite direction. On the other hand, it is unlikely to use an automatic gun with bipod spread out to kill oneself.

So, was he sitting when he killed himself? If he was sitting and only his back fell, he must have been sitting with legs stretched, like the corpse. It is unlikely to sit on the floor like that. If he was sitting on the floor cross-legged, his body would be cross-legged: rigor mortis doesn’t automatically straighten the body. If he was sitting on his bottom with soles on the ground and knees up, post-mortem position would be with bowed spread legs, not stretched legs.

Or did he shoot himself while already laying down? He shot himself in the mouth (picture). This is instant death, no time to stretch the arm again, if he was laying down already.

On this death photography, from which I understand he shot himself in the mouth, we see his shoulders and his chest, and clearly both arms lie along the body. Stephen Paddock was not laying down when he shot himself in the mouth: there’s no hand near his mouth.

We also see the handgun on this picture [a user tells me it was ascertained this is the handgun he used to kill himself]. It confirms that he couldn’t be laying down, as the gun would be stuck in his mouth or lying near his face. Besides, it confirms that his having been sitting is unlikely, because the gun and the hand that handled it fell apart as if after a body-size fall.

All in all, I think the machine gun above his foot has been put there in order to take a pic with spin: Gun Manic Covered With His Guns. In order to further gun control. And if the crime scene has been thus faked, then the most likely responsible for this are the police. Would it be correct to assume that, if asked, U.S. law enforcement would want to end the right to bear arms?

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It is important not to give a gun-bearing monopoly to the retards of law enforcement and the military. #RightToBearArms

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Any organization, anybody may use crisis actors, even when an event is no false flag, just to give a mediatized event some spin. #DIY (Do It Yourself)

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Twitter’s freedom of expression has been on an inexorable decline. It is enslaved to its US jurisdiction and politics. Although it is substantially better than Facebook that is a very low standard indeed. (Julian Assange)

Facebook could have been the Global Village and Suckerberg et al made it a monopoly of turd.

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Paris, capital of la France, is so romantic you’ll have to vomit at the end of the day.

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An Illuminati (Illuminato?) is an ass who, because of being ritually anal-ysed, will head a stuffy bureau six years rather than five. In fact, it’s more four years rather than three. But if the anal-ysing went particularly smoothly, it could be up to seven years in the garbage collecting bureau.

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It is the demographic transition that increased the fit man’s burden, as falling birth rates are caused by self-restraint. Unseen in nature, human populations have declined as goods increased. (In nature populations decline due to adverse environments.) The demographic transition resulted from the choice of those endowed with self-restraint (remember that as laws were being passed against child labor, children went from asset to liability), and then appeared a fertility gap. And all this (and the attendant “rise of the criminal”) was long before mass immigration. The rise in criminality predates immigration; and as eugenics was rejected, are new migrants really worse than the autochtonous unfit?

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You know nothing of a part until you know its relationship to the whole. Now, what do you know of the whole of things?

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Without terrorist attack or mass shooting the news is boring…

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The only good politician is a dead politician.

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The Federalist said: Workers will have no time for politics but that’s ok because industrialists will represent them in Congress. United States of America: 250 years of BS.

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Netanyahu orders to begin preparations for withdrawing from UNESCO along with U.S.

Proud to have worked at UNESCO. (Their conditions for temporary positions are shameful, though.)

Question is whether Israel knew there was an anti-Israel bias in UNESCO before U.S. left UNESCO because of an anti-Israel bias…

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Given the tremendous 1990s figures for abortion in U.S., it seems the country knows of no other contraceptive.

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Rose McGowan was suspended temporarily from Twitter because Dorsey wanted to show her his suspenders.

Who’s the most raped actress in Hollywood, by the way?

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Politicians are a scourge. Don’t waste my time with your muppets. I’m acquainted with a far loftier breed of men. (Yes, muppets can be a scourge. Like pest.)

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When sex orgies with underaged girls happen in Annie Hall (1977) by Woody Allen, spectacled buffoons [and the French en masse] say it’s cool. In Annie Hall a friend invites the character played by Woody Allen to a sex orgy with underaged girls; he says no sorry (like he feels tired). But he expresses no sort of disapproval at sex orgies with underaged girls he’s invited to. The fact that Woody Allen is now warning against a “witch hunt” shows the passage wasn’t meant as a denunciation, but rather the contrary.

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In Tetris game, as you combine bricks they disappear. In Tetris thinking, as you combine words it results in nothingness.

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I’m reading about subversive masterpieces every other day in the papers. But the system’s doing fine, thank you.

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Newspapers’ websites stink. Often as you get there a window pops up “Subscribe to our &c” with two choices: OK or Cancel. Now Cancel would normally refer to your last step, that is, opening the page, not to the pop-up window, for which you’re not responsible. The trick is that many people will click on OK in order not to close the page (cancel their step), although they don’t want to subscribe. They have no reason to think that Cancel means to close the window rather than to close the page, because they called the page and not the window. The trick designers want you to think that you won’t be able to read the page you want to read if you don’t click on OK (Subscribe), by telling you to cancel the pop-up window you didn’t call in the first place.

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A Saudi in Hollywood: starlet set to feature in Tom Clancy TV series. (KAWA News)

Next rape victim. Saudis be proud!

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The insane policy of putting a nation back to toil after decades of entitlement via oil rent will drive Saudi Arabia into chaos. Saudi Arabia has an advantage for entering post-work economy due to her oil rent-based extreme welfare. She must now go on full automated mode. Yet Saudization intends to replace Western expats by Saudis rather than by bots…

Western expats lent Saudi Arabia expertise. In order for the Saudis to move forward without them there has to be expertise. (Press TV)

There exist bots called expert systems. My motto for Saudi Arabia is: From oil rent to robot rent. The West lacks audacity and the ethos.

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A poem by Harvey Weinstein the serial rapist: A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a

#RoseMcGowan

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Chauvin et Jingo sont dans un bateau. Qui c’est qui rame ? C’est Chauvin.

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Unwanted sexual advance? But OK if wanted? So men should be telepathic

Ask guidance to God. He’ll tell you if this is rape-able stuff or not.

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Niger is a country whose name dangerously looks like the N-word. Don’t obliterate Niger from the world.

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To be honest, if ISIS/Daesh blew up some Oscars ceremony some day, I wouldn’t send my prayers. Just to tell you how honest I can be. I only wish Daesh would warn Crystal the Monkey not to attend the ceremony.

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As actresses start speaking up I’m afraid Weinstein will rape Crystal the Monkey, who can’t talk. Save her!

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In France there’s a taboo on religion statistics, so there’s actually no way to get an idea of the number of conversions to Islam. Mosques certainly have figures. So the Islamic institutions in France know the number of converts, while the French state has no clue.

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Story of the Fake Gay

-Why don’t you have a girlfriend?
-Uh… I’m gay.
-Oh, okay, I thought no girl wanted to go out with you.

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Eight EU countries tell Israel to pay up after destroying solar panels donated to Bedouin village.

European Union is the main financier of the infrastructure systematically destroyed by Israel in Palestine. It’s not the first time she asks for her money back. EU’s been asking for her money back for decades! The situation is ludicrous. She pays, Israel blows it up, she pays, Israel blows it up, she pays… Meanwhile, European tax payers pay for infrastructure on ever smaller pieces of land, until there will be no more Palestine! And, make no mistake, the end of Palestine is only the beginning of the Zio madmen’s hubristic expansion. If you think that by creeping before the Zionists you make them better men, you’re badly mistaken.

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Chelsea Clinton: I Left the Church When I Was 6 Because It Opposed Abortion.

I left the Church when I was 4 because I preferred reading Kant.

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The calling of the white race is the call of the wild, a wilderness of white fangs. High-IQ, undemocratic, socialist yellow race knows it.

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The Left, in democracies’ politics, will always multiply regulations, being forever unable to implement any.

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I work and to my human brothers on welfare, from the bottom of my loving heart I say: Stay where you are! Full automation now!

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For any hashtag whatever, latest tweets are always more fun than top tweets. Always. [When you click on a hashtag on Twitter, it forwards you to the tweets using that hashtag. You can choose to see the ‘top’ tweets with the hashtag, those having elicited most responses (retweets, likes, replies), or the ‘latest’ tweets.]

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When I see the Twitter blue badge (verified accounts) a warning light turns on in my brain “Caution: Boring.” The Blue Badge of Garbage.

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The French can’t write their own language. So much misspelling… Why don’t they shift to English once and for good?

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The French highjack #NewYorkAttack hashtag. Why not #attaqueàNew-York? Stop flooding the world with your misspelled tweets. (Misspelled in French. Hashtag is English but they tweet in French.)

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Terror attacks will probably delay mass conversion of the West to Islam by a couple of years.

Europe is reclaiming her Islamic heritage: Al-Andalus, Emirate of Sicily, Greece, Balkans, Central Europe…

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In French a wanker is a do-nothing. But to wank also means to do, like in “What the hell is he wanking?” (Mais qu’est-ce qu’il branle?) “He wanks nothing” (Il branle rien) means “He’s a do-nothing.”

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Pour expulser Serge Thion (1942-2017), le CNRS invoqua le devoir de réserve des fonctionnaires. L’opposer à un chercheur, un historien, quelle indignité !

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1/Scott Ostrem [The Walmart shooter, Nov 1] only wanted to go shopping. But the cashier was very mean. Automation now!

2/Why would a guy with a perfectly good job at a roofing company snap?

Scott Ostrem the roofer. Makes perfect sense now.

3/My thoughts go out to Mr Bluskye, Thornton, whose roof has remained unfinished because of truant roofer Scott Ostrem.

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Paris will ban all gas- and diesel-fueled cars by 2030, citing concerns about smog and climate change. (Yale Environment 360)

Municipal elections are every 6 years. No municipal majority can make plans beyond 6 years. It’s just politico trash talk.

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Donald Trump names Jerome H. Powell as his pick to succeed Janet Yellen as head of the Federal Reserve.

Jerome, good, like the major-domo in film Purple Rain. Singer says “Jerome” and Jerome dumps the hoe in the trash can. So funny.

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To minorities who are sick of being called racist names in the street: If that can reassure you, I get abused every single time I go out. Sometimes the abusers are minorities. Sometimes females. Surely sometimes gay too. This is the brutality of city life.

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The Matrix being a cult film for anti-establishment Americans, is it fair to say that these people are Hollywood cultists?

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“Opinions=my own.” A useful phrase for those who have no opinions whatsoever.

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Captain America is a queer like all nylon-dressed va-va-voom superheroes.

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Stop yawning, America, and get some sleep. It’s more important than you think. –Cranky, sleep-deprived America got some advice from experts at a Harvard School of Public Health Forum. (Harvard University)

This is the kind of news my institutional employer will never read. And I mean never. (& they’re not even in a conspirationist bubble.)

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As #ROSEARMY in some corners raises new stories of satanic ritual abuse: Can Hollywood rape stories be false memories induced by hypnotherapists? #ROSEARMY ‘d better prepare its pitch: sooner or later the public will be told all this was but mass hysteria.

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There are two ways to get rid of independent minds, starve them to death or work them to death.

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Why didn’t I, Rose McGowan, Rosanna Arquette, Annabella Sciorra spoke up earlier? We were followed by ex-Mossad agents. Isn’t that terrifying? Very. (Asia Argento commenting The New Yorker’s paper: Harvey Weinstein hired private investigators, including ex-Mossad agents, to track actresses and journalists)

Mossad’s pronounced in French same as “maussade,” which means peevish. I think their reputation suffers from this ridiculous name, in France.

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They all have guns in Cuba. At least that was so in the 70s, according to Ernesto Cardenal. Today I don’t know, but why would it be different ? There’s no gun control [in the sense given to it by its advocates in U.S.] in Socialist Cuba. To say it’s Socialist regimes which disarm their citizens is wrong.

Cardenal says all the people in Cuba shoot their guns during carnival or “Day of the National Rebellion.” Quote: “Y uno, dirigiéndose a mí: – Además, debes saber esto: aquí toda la gente tiene armas. Éste es el primer gobierno del mundo que le dio armas al pueblo y le enseñó a manejarlas. … Se comenta el hecho de que en Cuba las armas las tiene el pueblo. Con esas armas toda la gente está disparando tiros al aire esta noche [26 de Julio]. Si no se levantan contra la Revolución es porque no quieren, no porque no pueden.” (Ernesto Cardenal, En Cuba, Ediciones Carlos Lohlé, 1972, pp.321 & 327-8)

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Hashtag Games

#WhyImStillSingleIn4Words

All with the gang

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#MondayMotivation

If you think you like your job, I can understand you don’t want to go to prison. But otherwise?

Prison, for me, would be bed and boarding and time to write books.

In the grinder of managerial economy, job means prison, and prison on the contrary means bed and boarding and time to read.

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#BalanceTonPorc

1/ C’était il y a cinq ans. On n’était pas encore mariés.

2/ Son nom est Monica Lewinsky. Elle a agressé un président des Etats-Unis avec des fellations à genoux. En plus, c’est vrai qu’elle ressemble à un porc. Vous faites la différence entre un mâle et une femelle, vous, quand vous voyez un cochon ?

Tellement traumatisé qu’il lui a introduit un cigare dans le vagin.

Un autre acte odieux de Monica : impossible d’allumer le cigare (50$) après ça.

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#MeToo

[A hashtag campaign for awareness of sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the wake of Rose McGowan’s denunciations of Hollywood]

40-42 million prostitutes in the world, about half of them slaves plain and simple, and you need a #MeToo hashtag?

My name’s Hillary. For the sake of me, stop tweeting #MeToo: I’ve forgiven Bill. Everything.

#MeToo but I have forgiven Bill. #HillaryForPrison

This lady [a Quebecois user] says men must stop covering each other. But who’s the first to cover their dirty husbands if not their despicable wives?

It was in the Oval Office. Impossible to light that $50 cigar after the assault. #HisHighnessToo

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#IAmSkepticalAbout

God having a Chosen People. It doesn’t make sense.

God dwelt in the Tabernacle and you had to jingle some little bells before coming in. Lest He’d mistake you for a burglar?

‘Hardworking’ people who talk. Why don’t they just shut their mouth and work harder?

Bots’ judgments on me.

XLVII There’s a Fatma for you in this world

To the Consumers’ Association of Ireland

Dear Sir or Madam,

Supportive of consumer rights, I would like to call your attention to the topic of subliminal advertising, on which I have made some research.

The following case studies from my blog [Index] deal with very recent paper advertisements, many of them advertising multinationals’ brands and designed for international marketing.

The subliminal techniques involved are akin to mental manipulation and likely to be detrimental to the consumer’s choice. What is to be done to prevent consumers from being subjected to such deceptive manipulation? (March 29, 2015)

Answer:

Dear Flor, [Although I signed my full name Florent Boucharel, she calls me Flor because my email is flor.boucharel[@]gmail.com]

Thank you for your email. We would recommend that you contact the government body, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission as they have the power to investigate companies. They can be contacted on 014 4025500 or http://www.consumerhelp.ie

Kind regards,

Caroline.

My answer:

Dear Caroline,

Thank you for your reply. I don’t think the law forbids embedding the word SEX in advertisement photographs, which, as far as I have been able to ascertain since my attention was called to the practice, is the case in almost every paper advertisement these days. Since the law says nothing, a government investigation is out of the question. I believe this is what they will tell me. I was seeing more a campaign of opinion, and that’s why I reached out to your organization, in case you would find the matter relevant to consumer rights. (March 30)

& later (having no further news from Caroline)

In spite of your reply, I feel my mail has not received due consideration, especially since my blog statistics tells me you haven’t even thrown a cursory glance on one or two of the cases I have provided.

You know, I am sure, of those people who hold positions of responsibility and, when contacted about attendant matters, ask: “Why are you talking to me? Do we know each other?” (April 1)

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To International Consumer Research and Testing (ICRT)

Dear Sir or Madam,

Supportive of consumer rights and the important missions of consumers’ organizations, I would like to ask what your position is on the topic of subliminal advertising, on which I have made some research.

The following case studies deal with recently published advertisements (March 2015), many of them advertising multinationals’ brands and designed for global marketing. (April 4, 2015)

No answer.

Hello, is anybody in? Here’s the taxpayer who pays you!

No answer.

For the sake of accuracy, your name ought to be ICRNT: International Consumer Research and No Testes.

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Horror movie The Exorcist, about a Catholic priest fighting the Devil in the good old ways, uses subliminal techniques. Hence the many faints, nauseas, mental collapses necessitating psychiatric intervention among theater patrons when the film was released. Yet horror movies had been played on the screens for decades and none had had such impact on the viewers, because those films did not manipulate unconscious mind structures with subliminal techniques. As an example, the soundtrack for The Exorcist was embedded with the sound of humming bees at subliminal level, in order to trigger panic. It was an experiment in mind manipulation. (For more details on the subliminal elements in The Exorcist, read Media Sexploitation, 1976, by Wilson Bryan Key. See also this blog’s Index for my series on Subliminals in published advertising.)

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In Hormones, Sex, and Society: The Science of Physicology (1994) by Helmuth Nyborg, I find a paradox. It seems to me that a male androtype-1 should not choose an estrotype-1 as a spouse, since the latter will have, as Nyborg describes it, “higher libido” and the androtype-1 is not particularly well endowed in this respect. Hence, he should make a more “sex-stereotypic choice” with respect to finding a spouse, that is, he should depart from what Physicology predicts (that he will not be sex-stereotypical). What I mean by “should” is what he would do if he knew Physicology a bit. This is the paradox. The only solution to it, as far as I can see, would be that Physicology predicts that androtypes-1 do not object to their spouses’ promiscuity, nor to bringing up children sired by other men. A rather odd prediction in terms of evolutionary genetics.

Also, I would like to stress that our current “managerial elite” is recruited on personality criteria amongst which extroversion is perhaps the most important in the organization recruiters’ eyes. Which means the hormotype index of the American/European managerial elite is not likely to be 1 or 2 (maybe not even 3), nor it is this likely to be otherwise in the near future, whereas Nyborg claims that loner, intellectual androtypes are called to make up the elite.

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To Hollaback! (In their own wods, ‘Hollaback! is a global, people-powered movement to end harassment. We work together to ensure equal access to public spaces.’)

Having seen on Internet a video of yours in which a young woman is filmed by a hidden camera walking in Manhattan, it reminds me of a news report on the same topic and with the same technique I saw a few years ago on French TV, and of my own situation even though I’m a man.

I live in Paris where I do quite a lot of walking, not seldom by myself. My experience is that some people feel free to abuse verbally, in a sneaky way, lone persons in the street whose outward appearance they happen not to like.

I have conjectured that many people, walking alone in the street, resort to listening to music or to calling someone on their mobile phone in order primarily to prevent their being abused in such a way, or at least to escape noticing it.

Some vulgarized notions of psychology likely will evoke a paranoid state of mind. The very idea of paranoia, however, may well contribute to the spreading of sneaky verbal abuse. (As a matter of fact, the person abused may even be abused by being called a ‘paranoiac’ by his or her surreptitious abuser.) (April 2015)

No answer. (My point, as the reader understands, is that harassment in the street is not limited to female victims. In my experience, verbal abuse not seldom comes from women.)

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El Mallarmé «profeta» ha introducido intelectualismo en la poesía, y la poesía ha muerto casi. Todo ésto, las abstractas reflexiones o elucubraciones sobre el lenguaje y qué sé yo, es demasiado árido, y no muy riguroso tampoco como razonamiento y los filósofos lo hacen mejor.

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There was in the past of Christian Europe a mighty enemy in the East: the Ottoman Empire. A mighty colossus, it nearly obliterated Christianity on several occasions, as when its armies besieged Vienna, twice. At the head of such powerful armies, numerous as the waves of the ocean, were the dreaded Janissaries, a slave brotherhood of Albanian origin. The gate-keepers of the Bab-i Ali. O what convulsions in the misty mountains of Albania, when this people too vindicated its freedom!

This video [Te Rrapi ne Mashkullore, sung by Irini Qirjako, with images from some (Albanian?) motion picture] [Withdrawn from YouTube since then] shows scenes of the Albanian national struggle, here culminating with the assassination of a Turkish Basha or Bimbashi. The lyrics talk of a Bimbashi several times, as a portent of awesome and dreadful forces.

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There is that taylor in my neighborhood, M..kan, an Armenian. I brought him a pair of trousers not long ago. He told me that with such fabric these trousers would last me ten more years. Now they have a big hole in the bottom. You can’t trust Armenians…

M..kan is the Devil. For one there’s his accent. It took me some time to understand at last what he says when he’s greeting me. He says “Ça va, mon ami ?” (Howdy, my friend?) and I was hearing something like “Ça va, Mehmet Ali ?” (Howdy, Mehmet Ali?) I thought he was mocking me in his nasty Armenian ways… He’s a stutterer. He says “Merci, mon-mon ami” (Thanks, my-my friend) and I hear “Merci, Mehmet Ali“, like he’s mocking me. Like the devil he is…

One day I needed to have my trousers enlarged at the waist. He said, “Okay but think about a diet, Mehmet Ali!” And he laughed. He’s the Devil…

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Russian émigrés were all with Hitler, especially after Operation Barbarossa and the onslaught against USSR. They had brought the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to Germany, they had brought them to the USA, even to Manchuria and Japan. There’s even a book which claims they are the true inspiration of Hitler and the Nazi party. Grand-dukes and grand-duchesses were with Hitler. The heir to the Russian throne was with Hitler (and he was spied upon by the Gestapo at the same time). All the former White army was with Hitler and joined the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS on the Eastern front. The popes were with Hitler. Czarists, Solidarists, Fascists were with Hitler. Georgians and Tatars were with Hitler and they fought the Résistance in Corrèze where my grandparents were living their rural life (my grandfather was once taken hostage). Caucasian Muslims were with Hitler, and Stalin made them pay the price after the war.

I spent years collecting thousands of names of people involved on the side of Nazism and Fascism, from every country: Cossack White Army officers, Albanian gurus of mystic tariqas, French anarchists, Australian aborigines (true!), Afro-Americans, Indian nationalists, Indonesian nationalists, Khmer nationalists, Pu Yi the last emperor of China, Turkish Turanians, British aristocracy, the then King of Sweden and his son the present King of Sweden, Knut Hamsun, the Muslim Brotherhood and Nasser of Egypt, the Shah of Iran and the future Ayatollah Khomeini, etc. etc. A long list. I spent years on it, I don’t know what to do with that work.

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De hecho yo no había escuchado la canción Aviateur, cantada por Véronique Jannot, hace desde muchos años. Me la propuso YouTube, al escuchar yo otra cosa. Entonces me volvieron memorias de mi niñez. No son memorias de mi casa porque mis padres no miraban programas de televisión populares, con canciones y tales cosas. Pero, de vacaciones, nos quedamos con mis hermanos en la casa de abuelos o a veces de tíos, en el campo. Gente más popular y no tan educada como mis padres, y ellos miraban esos programas populares, y nosotros con ellos. Y me gustaba, de niño. Después, de adolescente, ya no me gustaba el campo. Me aburría, no podía hacerme amigos con los jóvenes, aunque me enamoré de una morena, cuyos padres tenían un comercio de bicicletas. Le declaré mi amor y, como ella no cayó en mis brazos al oírlo no más, lo abandoné todo. Una tontería, pero era bonita la hija del vendedor de bicicletas… De adolescente, las vacaciones en el campo eran malas. De niño era otra cosa. Gente sencilla, televisión popular, una Francia que tal vez aún ya no existe.

Véronique Jannot and I are of the same breed, de pelo y ojos castaños. But her very artist name (if it’s not her real name) is a joke, because it alludes to Jeannot Lapin*. I want to make clear that this sort of popular culture has something very shallow about it, which makes it unbearable to refined minds. Only the exhaustion of a working life can create a need for that kind of shallow entertainment.

*D’après internet, Jannot est son vrai nom. Elle aurait dû choisir un nom de scène plus glamour : Véronique Davies, Véronique Crawford-Jones, Veronica Lamborghini…

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Fragrances like attar of rose…

Vuelan azahares
jarabe de rosa beberé
almíbar de rosa saciará mi sed ardiente
miles de mirtos para tenderle arropes suaves
Encantadora es la rosa en el jardín de luna
Canta, bello ruiseñor, por la rosa que te llena de dulzura

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In France the name Fatma was used as a common name to designate a North-African girl (as there are many migrants from North Africa in France). For example: “Did you see that fatma?” Then it designated any girl, whatever her background, for example: “Did you see that fatma?” And then it came to be abbreviated as “fat,” (prononcer « fatt ») for example: “Will there be fats at that party?” (Il y aura des fatts à cette soirée ?) At least that was so in my teens.

I distinctly remember occurrences when the word was used by my friends and myself (by the way we were all white, middle-class teenagers). For instance, during a summer vacation in Spain we used to call Spanish girls “fats” among us. And there’s a joke. While we were in Spain, near Valencia, there were several days of feria with bulls, “toros.” Several toros were involved and they had a leader, so to speak. One day, one of our group, talking about this leading bull, called him “le taureau mère,” as we talk of a “vaisseau mère” (mother-ship) in a fleet of ships. But “mother-bull” was really ridiculous, so we laughed and someone said: “You mean ‘le taureau fatt’ (the fatma-bull)!”

But we didn’t say fatma to girls, they would have beaten us up.

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3 Poems to O.

(2014)

You didn’t tell me you’d take my heart away.

You didn’t tell me you’d always be in my dreams, at the cost of a life. But what is a life worth comparing with such dreams?

You didn’t tell me that, because of my memories of you, I’d be like a madman always by my thoughts. But what worth is soundness of mind compared to such lunacy?

You didn’t tell me my memories of you would be more real to me than reality. But what is reality worth, you tell me, in the shadow of one memory like these?

You didn’t tell me there would be no more seasons but the summer of your smile.

You didn’t tell me there would be a never-ending day from the day on when you said: One plus one makes one. Did you say so, by the way, or is it my imagination?

You didn’t tell me you’d break my heart in two so that one plus nothing makes a funny two: a crazy man.

You didn’t tell me one is not just one but also the one and only, so this one can’t be counted like any other one because in a way this one is a bit too much – especially being away.

You didn’t tell me I’d have to know the effect of spending some time by your side and then (as a punishment for what crime?) I’d have to know the effect of spending my whole life and perhaps even an eternity without you.

You didn’t tell me it wasn’t just two people in a given place at a given time, but two people one of whom would be forever out of space and time.

You didn’t tell me that was just a serious game so that not only would I lose my bid but also I would lose my mind.

You didn’t tell me I was to be there with you for a few days and then you wouldn’t be by my side until the end of time. Yet that’s not too high a price because there can be no such thing as too high a price for what I’m talking about.

You didn’t tell me you’d make a fool of me and I would be glad. Had you told me, I wouldn’t have believed you, for I was a fool. Born to be a fool: that’s what you should have told me.

You didn’t tell me…

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Yes but…

Yes but it’s only a dream.
–Yes but this is only a life.

Yes but what’s more precious than life?
–Yes but it’s made precious from dreams.

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Tears

If I could see your eyes
Then you would see
The moonlight on the sea
(Your eyes the moon
My tears the see)