WFRL: April

Deep Purple
April

WFRL: April Fool

Isis
April Fool

MrsOC's Feral House of Bongos Presents: CHARADE

Theme From "Charade"
Henry Mancini

CHARADE – noun

1. charades, (used with a singular verb) a game in which the players are typically divided into two teams, members of which take turns at acting out in pantomime a word, phrase, title, etc., which the members of their own team must guess.
2. a word or phrase acted out in this game.
3. a blatant pretense or deception, esp. something so full of pretense as to be a travesty.

From French, charade, from Prov. charrada "long talk, chatter," of obscure origin, perhaps from charrar "to chatter, gossip," of echoic origin. Originally not silent, merely relying on enigmatic descriptions of the words or syllables; the silent form was dumb charades. Welsh siarad obviously is a loan-word from Fr. or Eng., but its meaning of "speak, a talk" is closer to the Prov. original. originally a kind of riddle, probably invented in France during the 18th century, in which a word or phrase is divined by guessing and combining its different syllables, each of which is described independently by the giver of the charade. Charades may be given in prose or verse. The following is an example of a poetic charade:M y first is a Tartar, My second a letter; My all is a country, No Christmas dish better.

charade
charred aid
black bodies
lying hard in the sun
followers of the
Way too much
slain burned in the street
purple thumbs
forgotten
~ joyvox, shamWHOA

Let us all CHARADE,
A game that can be played,
By guessing who is who (is that you?)
And what is what,
And who am I?
Am I the pie man in the sky?
Or just a lonesome hobo,
Donchaknow,
Flying through the sky,
Looking for my slice of pie,
You can guess for what, or why,
Behind my silly grin,
You know, you'll never win,
Because I'm mad of onion peel,
I am not here, I am not real,
I'm just a modern day charade,
Made in the shade,
A game to be played!
~ TalkinKamel

Dressed up like Audrey Hepburn
The charade played
Upon the street was akin
To that played
When Syd Charisse was the model
Except this time
The fitted suit
With the straight-fronted jacket
And the tight collar
Seemed less fitting
To his athletic figure.
The charade thus fell
Before the clashing visions
Of vigorous manhood
And womanhood
Or better the attractive form
Of boys.
~ Lucius Septimius

My PSAT score said
I would never get laid
Was as personable as Raid
But my fears were allay'd
Eventually I'd be made
Through absurd charade
A buxom milkmaid
Or a Pimp with a fade
Maybe Sam Spade
And cash would cascade
Through riches I'd wade
If I the fee paid
In their clutches stayed
My carcass all flayed
On their altars arrayed
In their graven arcade
Their god to dissuade
~ Lucius Septimius

There was a time
When a carousel was not a ride
But rather a pageant
A courtly diversion
To carouse merely means
To walk about
And processions glorious
Typifying the virtues
Were the subjects of the
Courtly carousels
In the golden age of kings.
In our times a carousel is become
A diversion for children
While carousing is no more
A dramatic representation
Of virtue's victory over vice
But the very essence of the latter
Defined in terms of pleasures
Of the flesh rather
Than of the heart.
Charade likewise is a children's game
Played at time by adults
A useful means of teaching
The meanings of words
The layered forms of language
The connections between word and image
The active component of speech.
But for adults it has become
A way of life.
Lies and obfuscation
Masks and larvae.
While those of the past wore masks
In carousing pageant
That were intended to portray
Inner virtues to which they aspire
And charades the game
Intends to reveal through signs
The meanings hidden from the eyes
Now the masks of the charade
Are meant to obscure meaning
To hide from view the face
And enable the wearer
To proceed in the silent
Carousel of admiration
While aspiring to no virtue
But quelling the hunger
For human flesh
And sucking the air from others'
Screeching lungs.
Charade is the game of life
Played wickedly by those
Who must cover their viciousness
And walk about in masks
Which reflect not inner virtues
Aspired to, but instead
Are there to fool the madding crowd
In vain pursuit of advantage
That lasts but precious short.
~ Lucius Septimius


Rubber baby booty bottom
Push up bra ~ yo mama got'um
Pluck and primp
and bleach and stage
Squeeze and squish
and permanent wave
From your cradle
to your grave
Charading are the slaves of crave.
~ BabbaZee

Charlatan, begins again...
gets back on the horse he rode in on
Remakes his brigade,
Rebrands his charade ~
Leads his shamwow parade to oblivion!
Charlatan, begins again...
resurrected perverted messiah
he'll cover your sin
with a layer of skin
but from there you can't climb any higher.
~ BabbaZee

Shah Raid Sayed:
I ran, I wrack,
I rate, I ruin.
A parade of charades
vs: an unhinged loon.
Babble on, Obamanable!
~ BabbaZee


My small attempt at fooling fate
though I knew how it would end
Physician with your drooling face
would my left foot suspend
To check its Fahrenheit and size
against its right side sister
And laugh at me most horribly
whilst causing boil and blister.

“Alas!” he cried and I responded
“Leave those toes alone!
They may be cold and funny looking
but they’re all the toes I own!
Go seek some other toes to pilfer”
Thus had I inveighed
But he walked away with 15 toes,
a cruel and mean charade.
~ mrsoc


Don't rain on my charade
because my dear I'm unafraid.
~ 20 seconds between PK

Serj Tankian
Charades

WRFL: If It Be Your Will ~

Leonard Cohen
If It Be Your Will

If it be your will

That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will.

WFRL: Don't Munchen It

The Pirates
Don't Munchen It
1979

Floatin' Powa News Service: I've seen the future, baby ~ it is murder.

The Future
Leonard Cohen ~ 1992

You don't know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I was the little Jew
who wrote the Bible
I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories,
heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival
Your servant here,
he has been told
to say it clear,
to say it cold:
It's over,
it ain't going any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide ...
There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
and a white man dancing
You'll see a woman
hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin'.
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby:
it is murder.
~ Leonard Cohen, 1992

Obama is weighing military, diplomatic cooperation with Tehran

The additional "gestures" Barack Obama's spokesmen promised Iran would follow on the presidential new year message may presage a dramatic U-turn on Iran, including even an astonishing offer of US-Iranian military and diplomatic cooperation - that is if the Islamic Republic decides to play ball.

Myself, I am not so astonished. We have been tracking in this direction publicly since fall of 2006 but no one wanted to hear it.

Iranian leader assures Assad of Muslim victory

Obama proposes Afghan contact group including Iran

US hopes to engage with Iran on Afghanistan Tuesday

UN head welcomes Russia's role in restoration of Afghanistan

US and Iran open Afghanistan peace talks

NATO chief should be at ease with Muslim world
Naturally!

FACTBOX-Hague conference on Afghanistan

The Real Afghan Issue Is Pakistan

Obama's grand illusions

Gunmen Attack Police Academy in Pakistan; 20 Dead

Obama Sez: US won't hunt militants over Pakistan border

But Geert Wilders they didn't let in:

A Hezbollah member of Lebanon's Parliament will hold a rare meeting with British parliamentarians in London this week, the militant group announced Saturday.

The visit follows an announcement by Britain's Foreign Office last month that it has contacted Hezbollah's political wing in an attempt to reach out to its legislators. It said its ultimate aim is to encourage the militant group to abandon violence and play a constructive political role in the deeply divided country.

A Hezbollah statement issued Saturday says Hussein Hajj Hassan was invited by a number of British legislators to take part in a political meeting of parliamentarians to discuss "regional issues." It said he would be traveling to London on Sunday.

Britain's Foreign Office confirmed he has been granted a restricted validity, singly entry visa for the purpose of the visit.

Germany soft on Iran due to financial considerations

Venezuelan president to visit Qatar, Iran, Japan

With eye against Iran, Arabs wooing Syria

When the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt last had Syria's president alone in a room, earlier this month, it was classic "good cop-bad cop."

From Egypt came angry ultimatums — from the Saudi king, soothing and lucrative promises, according to an Egyptian official and a Saudi royal adviser. All with the goal of peeling Syria away from Iran.

The Arab world's top powers are eager to block regional rival Iran's influence in the Middle East. Their key for doing so is to woo Iran's Arab ally Syria, so they have begun engaging Damascus after years of shunning it in anger over what they see as its role in fueling turmoil around the Mideast.

US judge orders Iran to pay $25M for Hamas killing

NY Times Backpedals on Gaza Atrocities Story
The New York Times has now run a follow-up article on the Gaza atrocities reports that, while far from perfect, corrects and rebuts many of the false charges that spread from Ha'aretz to news outlets around the world.

US Surveys West Bank settlement

U.S. diplomats assessed Jewish settlement activity at an Israeli-occupied district near Jerusalem on Friday, in a public signal of greater activism by the Obama administration in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All we are saying, is give war a chance:

Palestinian militants have smuggled nearly 70 tons of explosives and bomb-making materials and other weapons into Gaza since Israel ended an offensive meant to choke off the arms flow, a senior Israeli defense official said Sunday.

The assessment by the chief of Israel's internal security service, Yuval Diskin, reinforced a growing feeling among Israelis that the government ended the war too soon.

Diskin told the Cabinet that since the three-week military operation ended Jan. 18, Gaza militants have smuggled into the territory 22 tons of explosives, 45 tons of raw materials for producing bombs, dozens of rockets, hundreds of mortar shells and dozens of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Hamas emphasizes not to recognize PLO peace deals with Israel

Concert for Holocaust Survivors Is Condemned
No good deed will go unpunished!

JERUSALEM — Palestinian political activists from the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Sunday condemned a camp youth orchestra’s performance for Holocaust survivors in Israel last week, and said they were banning the orchestra’s director, an Israeli Arab woman, from entering the camp.

In an unusual, almost surreal encounter, a group of 13 young musicians from the Jenin camp, ages 12 to 17, played Wednesday for about 30 elderly Holocaust survivors at a social club in the Israeli town of Holon, just south of Tel Aviv. The hourlong concert was a central event of Israel’s annual Good Deeds Day, sponsored by an Israeli billionaire.

Adnan al-Hindi, the leader of the camp’s Popular Committee, a grass-roots group representing the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the young musicians had been exploited by the orchestra director, Wafaa Younis, for the purpose of “normalizing” ties with Israel. He said by telephone that the children had been “deceived” and dragged unwittingly into a political situation that “served enemy interests” and aimed to “destroy the Palestinian national spirit in the camp.”

IAEA Votes Again on New Chief

To Be Christian in Iraq:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Blind fanaticism is reaching unprecedented heights in this capital city, and for the Christians who live here and throughout Iraq it is turning into a nightmare.

Persecution against Christians is being unleashed in many cities and neighborhoods where Christians and Muslims coexisted peacefully, if somewhat coldly, some years ago. In fact, the patriarch of the Chaldean Church in Iraq, Archbishop Emmanuel III Delly, called it “open persecution, as in the early centuries of the Church.”

In Baghdad, especially in the neighborhood where Christians have their main Church buildings, the structures are being bombed, desecrated and looted, crosses torn down or broken and hosts trampled.

Priests and deacons are being abducted, often ransomed, and sometimes killed. Families are being thrown out of their homes without notice or forced to abjure Christianity and embrace Islam.

Businesses are being robbed, men abducted and killed — or released in exchange for a huge ransom that leaves families without any resource. There are also threats and intimidation designed to have young Christian women married off to Muslims, and extortion occurs in the form of forcing payment of the jizya (Islamic tax for non-Muslims).

Ruler of Dubai leading delegation to Moscow

Young Russians want to work for Gazprom

Young Russians dream of job at Kremlin


Siemens (GERMANY) plans to become Gazprom’s strategic partner

Gazprom: Serbia has no alternative
Vee mik offer, you don't refuse. In Soviet Universe Alternative Has You.

Not fah nuttin, but... how long ago did I tell you about this one?
Russia: Arctic Deployment Planned

Russia to build 6 nuclear subs

A new personality cult rises in Turkmenistan

"A holy place cannot be left empty," he said, quoting a Turkmen proverb.

The EU has postponed indefinitely a vote on an Interim Trade Agreement with Turkmenistan because of a lack of human rights guarantees

The Russian-Turkmen economic forum:From Lively Dialogue to Mutually Beneficial Projects

China eager to expand in Turkmenistan

Chinese president accepts credentials from seven ambassadors

Massive Chinese Cyber Spy Network Uncovered

Gates: U.S. Not Prepared to Respond to North Korea Missile Launch
The defense secretary told "FOX News Sunday" that the United States can do nothing to stop North Korea from thumbing its nose at the international community by test-firing a long-range missile.

Iranian missile experts in North Korea 'to help with rocket launch'

Hindu Nationalists Heart Hitler

INDIA: “Suspend defence deal with Israel”

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Saturday demanded that the United Progressive Alliance government forthwith suspend the air defence missile deal it had struck with Israel and order a CBI probe into the circumstances leading to the purchase and the alleged kickbacks involved in it.

Euro chiefs ban use of Miss and Mrs
Behold the march of the whores of Gramsci as they steal the words from your mouths, thereby REDEFINING YOUR REALITY:

Guidance issued in a new 'Gender-Neutral Language' pamphlet instead orders politicians to address female members by their full name only.

Officials have also ordered that 'sportsmen' be called 'athletes', 'statesmen' be referred to as 'political leaders' and even that 'synthetic' or 'artificial' be used instead of 'man-made'.

Is that right, Mrs. Man Made MFing Sportsman Von Statesman?

"MORAL CAPITALISM" ALERT:
G20 Prologue: The Quest for Moral Capitalism

G20 summit must make the moral case for capitalism

Goldman Sachs boss on G20 hopes

G20: If capitalism is 'overthrown', we'll lose our political freedom

I guess Steyn must be an Unhinged Lunatic too:
Mark Steyn: Government's grasp going global

Russia's Medvedev backs long-term 'super currency'

Goldman Sachs Funds Paid $49.6 Million to Top Executives

TARP Nominee Drops Out
No reason was given for his sudden withdrawal. Tarpus Interruptus.

The TARP Email Trail: AIG And Citi Execs Clueless, Arrogant; Kashkari "Tough To Watch"
Sounds about right to me.... It's always tough to watch the kneel cash carry in action.

Bank Executives May Keep TARP Funds After Meeting With Obama

U.S. Lays Down Terms for Auto Bailout
Sham Wow! I am The Mighty Obamanable! I will fire whoever I want!

The Highway to Hell

"AC/DC played here [in Prague] last week," he told the Czech newspaper Lidovy Noviny yesterday. "And their cult song Highway to Hell might have led me in that very improvised speech to use the phrase 'road to hell'." Topolanek's appraisal of Obama's strategy came during a report to MEPs at the European parliament in Strasbourg on last week's EU summit.

CHACHING! Was there ever any doubt?

Change in US Stem Cell Policy Could Create Half Billion Dollar Market

Hillary Clinton to accept award from largest abortion provider in US

3/27: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to receive the highest award given by Planned Parenthood Federation of America -- the Margaret Sanger Award, named for the organization's founder, a noted eugenicist. The award will be presented at a gala event in Houston, Texas this evening.

Jurors Acquit Kansas Doctor in a Late-Term Abortion Case
He's not just any Kansas doctor he is the absolutely notorious GEORGE "the killer" TILLER

3 Researchers at Harvard Are Named in Subpoena

The three researchers have advocated increased use of antipsychotic medicines in children and have accepted lucrative consulting agreements from the drugs’ makers.

Dick Dawkin's Magic Bus in Seattle now:
Local atheists lift their voices in bus ads

Seattle Atheists are starting a bus-ad campaign intended to give atheists a voice, provide a way for them to connect, and to put a "positive face on atheism." It's the latest example of the increased visibility of atheists and agnostics locally, nationally and internationally

March 25, 2009: STATEMENT OF ROBERT S. MUELLER, III DIRECTOR FBI

I want to give you a brief sense of the FBI's current priorities, the key changes we have made in recent months, and the challenges we face.

Meet South Africa's New President:
He has four wives and has already faced 783 counts of corruption. SHAM WOW! That's even worse than Olmert. Yes the picture at left is really of him. OOGA BOOGA, MFers!

This fast-approaching catastrophe is a source of shame and apprehension to millions of honest people, white and black, in South Africa itself. It is also a tragedy for Africa as a whole, a continent hungry for any reason to hope. And it is grave news for the civilised world, which needs no more failed states.

Yet I can promise you I will be accused of alarmism and pessimism for saying so, and quite possibly of 'racism' too. Why? All the soppy admirers of Nelson Mandela - especially the BBC - gave the new South Africa a free pass when apartheid ended 15 years ago.

They wanted to believe this complicated and important nation had become a sort of heaven on Earth where all tears were dried and all problems solved.

Tullow (UK) discovers more oil in Uganda, negotiates with Congo

Now I think I may understand what was really behind that brawl at the Aussie Airport:

THEY call themselves MBM - the Muslim Brotherhood Movement - a gang of 600 men who boast they are the toughest and best young street fighters of Middle Eastern descent in Sydney.

MBM claims to be the biggest of four new gangs to emerge on Sydney streets in the past year. Its numbers rival those of the state's largest bikie gang, the Rebels.

The sudden appearance of MBM, with its growing membership recruited predominantly from the city's south-western suburbs, has alarmed senior police already battling to combat open warfare among outlaw motorbike gangs.

On the 3/22 Aussie Airport Brawl:

Today's arrest of the Bandidos gang member Mahmoud Dib was not directly related to Sunday's brawl between up to 15 members of Hell's Angels and Comancheros, which left one person bludgeoned to death.

Dib, 27, had been charged with six firearm offences after a semi-automatic pistol was found in a car connected to him, police said. He was also being investigated in relation to a string of drive-by shootings.

Carbon capture and storage partnership to receive federal funding

Alaska's Mt. Redoubt volcano continues to erupt

INDONESIA:Three volcanoes put on second-level alert status

6.0 Papua (Indonesia) region

4.2 in China

Who By Fire?
Leonard Cohen & Sonny Rollins
1989

MrsOC's Feral House of Bongos Presents: LICENSE

The Incredible Bongo Band
Inna Gadda DaVida

Attenzione: Poets, Paisanos, Proles & Palookas ~

Sham WOW, MFers!
Today's Bongo, "License and variations thereupon" shall now commence.
Tomorrow's Bongo will be announced inside this thread.

Ready or not, grid yer loons!



To James Bond they gave
A license to kill.
Many he sent to their grave
And continues still
To pop caps galore
Into the wicked swine
And paint with gore
A picture quite sublime.
To us a different license was give
One to love one another
And our enemies to forgive
And see each as our brother
Such license was hard won
On a cross in pools of blood
When God sent his son
To redeem us from sin's flood
But today the license all desire
Is to be licentious
And revel in lustful fire
And passions sensuous
We forget how dear the cost
Of pleasing the animal we
As we burn, we are lost
And lose the chance to fully be.
~Lucius Septimius

A license to drive
They gave me at sixteen
And I used it wisely
Except at moments of extreme
Necessity, when forced
By time of night and intoxication
To hit the highways
Of this bounteous nation.
I always made it home,
Sometimes I know not how
Unlike my friend, ol' Paul
Whose Maverick hit a cow.
Yes they judged right
To privilege my lead foot
Since by it they got a fee
And a gas tax to boot.
And if I should run afoul
Of their legislative hold
They will let me back
If I pay a sum of gold.
A gift it was indeed
When the condescended once
To grant me the license
To be a teenage dunce.
~ Lucius Septimius

While waiting for the girl
Behind the counter to finish
Filling out the form
That gave the approval of the state
To my foolishly contrived nuptuals
After staring for a bit
At the sign that explained
That if you were thirteen
You needed your parents to sign
The form to let you wed
Unless, of course, your belly
Was already filled with joy
On account of your prior fornication
Out of the corner of my eye
I noticed the counter one over
Was where you applied
For a license of a different kind
Conceal and Carry Permits
The government forms
Filled out by the same girl
Who gave me license to marry
A crazy wench (the beta-wife)
Perhaps I went to the wrong window
By mistake.
~ Lucius Septimius


Licentiousness, and lasciviousness,
the cultural state of our worldly mess
No restraint!(the righteous complaint)
as fools yield to Satan's caress
~ Cookie Lady Bootsie Highway


There once was a gal who was so dense
She couldn't write poems worth two cents.
But she spoke the right lies
So the 'high-cultured' guys
Still gave her poetic license.

An appropriately bad limerick inspired by Nikki Giovanni, Poet-in-Residence at Virginia Tech, best known for such masterpieces as "Can You Kill, N****r, Can You Kill?"
~ Grayce


Licentious he called me! I quaked with chagrin!
How could he? I wept, was this malice or whim?
No lice have been nearer to me than his head
He answered that I was nit picking instead.

In rage never seen before, aimed I my halbert
Dressed though I was in my favorite Prince Albert.
But hang the expense ‘tis no moment of pique!
I wash my hair faithfully every two weeks!

Without a regard if it needs be or nay
And once every month my whole bod the same way!
So how can this blackguard make such a cruel libel?
A one who has filth which is clearly archival?

But once I had finished him (he of lame brains)
I had to get rid of his mortal remains
I couldn’t abandon him- let it go by
So instead I deposited him in the lye

The stuff that we keep for to soften our pelts
But sturdier dirt like his simply won’t melt.
No fire that is Earthly would consume his frame
I saw it was possible I’d take the blame.

So I dressed him in finery, (though he’d looked better far)
And left him to sit in the pub by the bar.
The bar maid observed as she left him a beer
“That’s the first tip the blighter has left me all year!”
~ mrsoc


Lie since that's all you can do
A license don't give you no truth
A lie is a lie
Lie since sin singers deny
but a lie that sings sinners ain't true.
~ BabbaZee


Licentious?
You know The Lie sent yez.
Replete with a license to fuck.
Under Golden Calves he will bend you
make you mad
gone insane
run amuck
Licentious?
Beware, The Lies scents youse.
Like a predator after the prey.
You roll in his mud
are obsessed with your pud
and feel you are licensed to play
Licentious is feeling contentious,
irredentist, resents this, OK.
At the next, if you please
when you drop to your knees
it would behoove you far better to pray.
There's a saying that goes
to the pimps and the hos
If one wants to play
one must pay.
~ BabbaZee


A Lye Since to Conk For Obama
He need him some Al Sharpton drama
His natural fro
when lit all aglow
by his halo is not very shiny
Methinks for the BRAND
and the right sleight of the hand
we need something much smoother,
less "Hymie".
All licensed hairdressers, apply here
Peace Out from your Sugar,
Plouffe Daddy
~ BabbaZee


Sham Wowin' Slap Choppin' Vince
Thought he was some kinda prince
he paid her a grand
misused both his hands
And now he is licensed to mince
~ BabbaZee

The Prophet Zimmy's
License to Kill
as performed by
Richie Havens

Man thinks 'cause he rules the earth he can do with it as he please
And if things don't change soon, he will.
Oh, man has invented his doom,
First step was touching the moon.

Now, there's a woman on my block,
She just sit there as the night grows still.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Now, they take him and they teach him and they groom him for life
And they set him on a path where he's bound to get ill,
Then they bury him with stars,
Sell his body like they do used cars.

Now, there's a woman on my block,
She just sit there facin' the hill.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Now, he's hell-bent for destruction, he's afraid and confused,
And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill.
All he believes are his eyes
And his eyes, they just tell him lies.

But there's a woman on my block,
Sitting there in a cold chill.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

Ya may be a noisemaker, spirit maker,
Heartbreaker, backbreaker,
Leave no stone unturned.
May be an actor in a plot,
That might be all that you got
'Til your error you clearly learn.

Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool
And when he sees his reflection, he's fulfilled.
Oh, man is opposed to fair play,
He wants it all and he wants it his way.

Now, there's a woman on my block,
She just sit there as the night grows still.
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

~ The Prophet Zimmy, 1983

Lucius Septimius: Historically Speaking

Aerosmith
Kings & Queens

Social progress can always be associated with political freedoms. Political freedom requires the existing presence of both economic freedom and freedom of conscience. All three are linked, and the empirical evidence of history clearly teaches us that one cannot exist without the other two.

In the 12th century we begin to see the emergent emancipation of the individual via self-governing communities that spread education and practiced mercantile expansion and interconnection of economic markets. By the 14th century, even the smallest peasant villages of Europe were connected to a vast international trading network.

It was entirely possible for a peasant in fourteenth century Germany, using money he had obtained by selling produce which he had grown specifically to be sold in the market, to purchase pepper from Indonesia or silks from Italy, or woolen cloth from England, or wax candles from Russia.

He could use that money to build a bigger house on stone foundations. He could use that money to send his children to school or even university. This is not hyperbole: it happened on a regular basis. My research has shown that by 1450 better than half of the students who attended universities in central Europe were peasants; in any given village around 5% of the boys in a generation could expect to go on to a university.

What made this possible? Free markets, coupled with political liberty at the level of the commune and a level of genuine intellectual concern, the sort of thing that only money and the leisure time it buys makes possible.

Did everyone profit from this? No, of course not. There were always those at the bottom end who, for whatever reason, weren't up to the task. There was an increasing polarization in peasant villages over the period 1300 to 1500 between rich and poor. Some at the top moved upward on account of industry, investment, public service, and education; others just stayed where they had been as serfs. Wealth increased, but it increased specifically among those who were positioned to be most active in taking advantage of the new situation.

The nobility were not necessarily pleased with the new development. Labor costs increased; their profit margins decreased. Meanwhile, they felt it necessary to engage in increasing levels of conspicuous consumption to illustrate their status. The monarchs, the upper edge of the aristocracy, while pleased with the new wealth, were also concerned about keeping everyone in their proper place.

The result, in the 16th and 17th centuries, was increased regulation, regimentation, and repression. Educational opportunities dried up as schools were taken from the communities and given to the states.

By the seventeenth century, in France and Spain the sort of education which prepared one for university education was highly restricted -- trade schools were set up which would be more profitable to the state.

State churches preached official doctrine; dissidents might pay with their lives. Sumptuary laws limited the amount that individuals could buy -- the amount of cloth in your coat, the width of your ruff, the number of pairs shoes you might own were regulated by law.

Meanwhile, the state taxed more and more to support an ever widening and invasive bureaucracy intended to regulate every aspect of life. "Police ordinances" appeared in increasing detail, with prescribing how one ought to live, think, worship, speak, eat, drink, marry, screw, raise children.

At the top of the heap, an increasingly small band of courtiers enjoyed a life of unparalleled luxury fueled by taxes, but also on account of royal monopolies. There was hardly any sector of the economy where free competition was allowed. Between the guilds and monopoly corporations, practically every component of the economy was controlled by corporate and state interests.

This was Absolutism. It didn't work. People resisted.

There were periodic revolutions in Europe starting in the early sixteenth century leading up to the French Revolution. France, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands all experienced waves of revolutionary violence. In every case, what the rebels wanted was a dismantling of the absolutist regime and a return to the "good old days" of economic and political liberty.

There were also little forms of resistance -- on a daily basis common folk flaunted the new rules and regulations. Some did so openly, others privately and quietly. The state, despite its gruff rhetoric of "divine right" and "necessity" was generally powerless in these areas. Repression, when it did occur, was usually arbitrary and sloppy and only underscored the injustice of the system. Censorship could not quell dissent; the best thing to do was ignore it.

The end of the seventeenth century saw what is often considered the apogee of Absolutism -- the reign of Louis XIV of France. Louis' success was trumpeted by contemporaries and later generations. Here was a regime that WORKED. Highly centralized, extremely rational, effective in the extreme.

But was it? Research has shown that it was all a veneer. Louis's reign was largely a failure -- he bankrupted the nation and destroyed the economy through regulation and repression. Dissent was rife; rebellion was a constant threat. Only through constant war and the use of force could France be held together.

But we don't see that: we see Versailles. That was intentional. Louis and his advisers understood the value of propaganda. Create an image; control the message. And it worked. The age of the Sun King became a golden age. Meanwhile, France sunk deeper into the pit of social and economic backwardness.

Across the channel, political instability in England led to the totally unintentional lapsing of laws on censorship and banking. The result was the emergence of the freest and most open society the world has yet seen. It was raucous and chaotic. It had it's horrible dark side, shown in all those Hogarth paintings.

But in the space of a generation England was transformed from a sleepy agricultural society into the first industrial-mercantile society. Middle-class Englishmen enjoyed a standard of living on par with that of nobles in France and Spain. And there was a genuine freedom of the press. The newspapers of eighteenth-century London multiplied. In form and content they were like the blogs of today (and, in some cases, as ephemeral). Folks met in coffee houses and taverns, read the news, and argued about it. Politics, formerly confined to Westminster, was now taken "out of doors" as they put it.

Germans found themselves confronted in the eighteenth century with two models. The rulers were entranced with the French model of Absolutism. They built palaces emulating Versailles and attempted to apply the same sort of centralized measures that had worked so well (ha!) in France.

The middle classes, on the other hand, were totally taken with the English. Every middle-class German home had two books: a Bible and a translation of Shakespeare. Novels and plays in imitation of English models appeared in volume -- by the end of the century Germans were writing and reading more novels than anyone else, and the country enjoyed a literacy rate of 90% when the literacy rate in France was more like 40%.

Since the middle class were the bureaucrats who served the state, the two conceptions clashed in the formation of policy. But so long as the old political and social order remained in place, the middle classes were unable to do much to resist centralization.

That all changed in the aftermath of the French Revolution. The old aristocracy lost much of its political power (though not all of it) and the "liberals" (that is, supporters of political and economic liberty) began to acquire greater power. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the liberals were in a position to assume control of the state.

But then something went wrong. the backlash began after the European revolutions of 1848, when the liberals attempt to secure power through violence failed. Consequently, the established elites and aristocracy resisted the elimination of their privileges and the state absolutism that supported it , the guilds resisted the rise of the factories, and the farmers naturally resisted policies that forced them to modernize or starve.

Masses of unemployed (who would eventually be able to find much better paying jobs in factories than they had as day-laborers in the countryside) naturally bred a reactionary "army". The highest and the lowest allied against the middle... and against freedom.

Culturally, the elites began to yearn for the glory days of absolutism. Art nouveau in France revived the style of Louis XIV. Napoleon III created a new imperial style. Germans celebrated the memory of Frederick the Great and even earlier medieval kings. Spain devolved into worship of the "Golden Age" of Philip II. Meanwhile the labor unions and corporate entities gradually, in cooperation with the state, eliminated competition, drove out the small shop keepers, and began to create a kind of new feudalism.

The displaced shopkeepers -- artisans and petty bourgeois -- now found the reaction they had served so faithfully had betrayed them. They attacked the corporations. But the elites had a ready defense at hand: blame the Jews.

So the petty bourgeois waxed about the greatness of guilds while watching Wagner's Die Meistersinger then went home grumbling about how the dirty Jews had stolen their livelihood. It was a lie, but a lie that focused their anger on something other than the real cause of their misfortune: their own reactionary opposition to liberty.

We know where the story goes.

My point is that the modern day "liberals" have nothing to do with the liberals of the past.

They do not love freedom; they desire the perfectly ordered world of Absolutism.

They do not want "progress," they want to turn back the clock to the days of Louis XIV.

They are enemies of individual liberty and social mobility -- they want us to stay in our proper places and be cogs in the great society wheel that provides wealth for the courtiers and the sycophants of the prince.

And at the top, the celebrate a system of absolute monarchy. True, the kings are elected as are the nobles, but they are chosen from within a tiny minority which exercises almost complete control over its membership. And they are served by a secular clergy of media functionaries who preach the Gospel of state and obedience. Dissent is silenced now with far greater efficiency and much less bloodshed.

And, in the process, the agents of reaction, the priests, nobles, and princes -- the privileged orders -- have taken words such as liberty and progress and completely altered their meanings. They mask their reactionary seizure of power as "moving forward" when their ideal is the mythical age of order in the past. And the people are just stupid enough to buy it.

Perhaps it is because they are scared of progress and change. They don't want freedom; they want to find their place and stay there quietly. The problem is that they don't understand that by assuming that position they will not be able to enjoy the standard of living they aspire too.

But unwilling to accept responsibility for their new servitude they vent their spleen on imaginary, phantom enemies: Jews, Patriarchy, Christian Fundamentalism, Capitalism, etc. They happily lap up the poison spewed by their new priesthood as it allows them to hate and feel righteous doing so while absolving them of any blame for the incredible emptiness present in their own lives.

~ Lucius Septimius

Wagner ~ Die Meistersinger
"The Mastersingers of Nuremberg "
Overture & a piece of Act 1

WFRL: From the Islets of Langerhans...

Weird Al Yankovic
Pancreas

My pancreas
attracts every other pancreas
in the universe
With a force proportional
To the product of their masses
And inversely proportional
To the distance between them

MrsOC's Feral House of Bongos Presents: DIDACUS

The Saint Song
A short song naming over a hundred saints,
sung to the tune of a popular Gilbert and Sullivan song
AKA known as 'The Element Song by Tom Lehrer

SAINT DIDACUS:

Born in Cadiz, Spain, and christened Joseph Francis, the youth spent much of his free time around the Capuchin friars and their church. But his desire to enter the Franciscan Order was delayed because of the difficulty he had with his studies. Finally he was admitted to the novitiate of the Capuchins in Seville as Brother Didacus. He later was ordained a priest and sent out to preach. His gift of preaching was soon evident. He journeyed tirelessly through the territory of Andalusia of Spain, speaking in small towns and crowded cities.

His words were able to touch the minds and hearts of young and old, rich and poor, students and professors. His work in the confessional completed the conversions his words began. This unlearned man was called "the apostle of the Holy Trinity" because of his devotion to the Trinity and the ease with which he preached about this sublime mystery. One day a child gave away his secret, crying out: "Mother, mother, see the dove resting on the shoulder of Father Didacus! I could preach like that too if a dove told me all that I should say."

Didacus was that close to God, spending nights in prayer and preparing for his sermons by severe penances. His reply to those who criticized him: "My sins and the sins of the people compel me to do it. Those who have been charged with the conversions of sinners must remember that the Lord has imposed on them the sins of all their clients." It is said that sometimes when he preached on the love of God he would be elevated above the pulpit. Crowds in village and town squares were entranced by his words and would attempt to tear off pieces of his habit as he passed by. He died in 1801 at age 58, a holy and revered man. He was beatified in 1894.

Comment: Didacus was such a poor student that the Franciscans wouldn’t have him. When Capuchins finally took him into their order and eventually ordained him, he proved to be a powerful preacher—to everyone’s surprise. As we often do, Didacus’s contemporaries expected little from someone with a slow mind. Didacus proved to them that intelligence is not the only measure. The person who has a loving heart, a listening ear and a wealth of compassion is, in the long run, much wiser.

Let the Bongos Begin!

Didacus was a preacher-man
A saint of wide reknown
His voice would echo through the chapels
All around Cadiz town.
The Franciscans wouldn't have him
The thought his wit too meager
So he was forced to join the Capuchins
Who proved to be more eager
Under their cowl he learned to speak
And words poured forth like wine
Or unction on the open sores
Afflicting all mankind
Despise the Franciscans he could've
Had he before God no dread
But took it all in stride, and said
"I always wanted a white foamy head."
~ Lucius Septimius

We are called upon to witness
To teach to the world
The words of salvation and grace
Didacus, the teacher
Rejected as too dim
He would not heed to judgment
The voice of pride
But found his own voice
In service and humility
It is truly a miracle
And most worthy of God
When the faith of man
Overcomes the pride of man
It is the word, the spirit
The water of life
Which opens the mouth
When called, he heard
When humble, he was filled
Where he had been mute
He spoke now the words of Grace
Like Peter the Rock
Who when the tongues of flame
Anointed his dull head
And rewarded his faithfulness
And the humility and pain
That followed his final faithlessness
With the word of truth
The greatest sermon of all
Preached by the one who seemed dim
By the measure of the world
But whom God chooses
To be his voice.
~ Lucius Septimius

Blessed Didacus of Cadiz

Went to buy a Cadillac

But his credit only heaven
Would describe as "In the black".
So he settled for a Hyundai
Sporty model though it be
And the lesson for us all is
Shop and live humility.
~mrsoc

I could not even fakus
a poem about Didacus
~ Q the Lone Deranger

(coughs quietly)
There once was a man named St. Didacus
Who yearned to study Leviticus
Concerned as he was with priestly legislation
He schemed to effect total monopolization
Not only the Franciscans who rejected him so thoroughly
But also those Capuchin Friars who embraced him assuredly.
~ Chief Glowing Clackers of Nanuk


Saint Didacus
got himself preordoomed
So he took his one way ticket ta palooksaville
and rode like thunder
All the way to the end of the line

Wholly Heyoka around the edges
You don't make Tzadikim without driving wedges

Pretty good for a bad student.
The Franciscans can kiss his moderately schizoid ass.
~ BabbaZee

Didacus, they made a saint.
though back in the day,
they swore he ain't.
He didn't do what the saintly do ~
he had no fork,
no silver spoon.
Didacus, constrained by fate
They swore he can't,
they sez he ain't.
Joseph, Francis,
What's yer face?
Just hit the bricks,
stay off our place.
Didacus, they swear he ain't
made of the what
to be a saint.
You can not walk
The Franciscan Way!
Moron!
Clod!
Subpar!
cried they ~
Go clean the barn!
Go bail some hay!
Go darken someone else's day!
Didacus, it's just your fate
ain't got the what
what makes a saint.
Inside your skull
much stone reposes...
Didacus thought,
he'd say that to Moses....
Moron?
Clod?
Subpar?
am I?
We'll see what's who,
We'll see who's why!
Didacus, constrained by fate
They sez he can't,
they swears he ain't.
So Didacus becomes The Great,
despite the what
they said he ain't.
Behold the Sainthood
of the Ain't
by scars
subpars
and clods of taint.
Andalusians of grandeur, meet fingers of fate.
~ BabbaZee

Camille Saint-Saëns
Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso
As performed by Itzhak Stern