Numbered lists and the difficulty of daily ranting.

So I'm trying to get back on the write-o-cycle, having fallen off roughly two years ago, but it's proving to be more of a challenge than I thought.

For starters, this time around, I'm doing a lot of writing that isn't going up in the form of a daily blog/rant/thingy, and is aimed instead at a slightly more commercial audience. So I'm working on churning out snarky numbered lists for Cracked.com, angry-yet-non-threatening political rant for TruthOut.org, and useful and informative how-to articles on Experts123.com.

Of course, none of the above have "hired" me, nor do I know exactly how to submit my work to them, but hey, keeps me busy and let's me occasionally convince myself that I might at some point make some money off of it.

Thing is though, that the more I think of writing as a job, the less I want to do it, and the fewer and fewer topics I want to discuss on my blog, as I think "hey, wait a sec, shouldn't share that for free", which then makes me feel like a total money-grubbin' capitalist a-hole.

But every now and again I come up with something that won't fit anywhere but my blog, some short little ditty that just has WRB written all over it.

Like this.

America Explained in 4 Simple (but false) Statements.

4. "The American Dream" aka "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps."

For starters, practically no one in Merka has bootstraps anymore, we all get to wear shitty fall-apart-at-the-sight-of-weather sneakers manufactured in off-shore sweatshops and sold in box stores so huge our fat asses can't make it from one end to another without renting an electric scooter. Aside from that, this statement ignores the reams of data gathered over the last 50 or so years that shows that not only is upward mobility no longer a trend in Merka, but that downward mobility has been the rule for years now, even before the Great Re-possession. The reason Merkans still hold on to this ridiculous belief is based on...

3. "If you're poor, its you're own fault for being lazy/sick/stupid/black/brown/ etc."

Merkans hate poor people. Poor people not only make the whole country look bad, but for some weird reason there are always people in the government trying to take away our money and give it to no good lazy poor people. Oh, we'll happily spend tax money on police and prisons to lock them up, but actually trying to prevent poverty-based crime (and the VAST majority is poverty based) by obtaining some measure of *shudder* "economic equality" is straight out freedom-hating-socialist heresy because...

2. "Competition brings out the best in people".

O rly? So the same thing that induces people already making assloads more than your average working Joe (who does something worthwhile with his labor) to take illegal steroids to further wring cash and endorsements from people stupid enough to believe smacking a globular chunk of leather with a stick makes you a role-model brings out the best in people? The same thing that "forces" companies to lay-off thousands and move their operations abroad to avoid taxes, labor laws, and that pesky lack of slave-labor is a good thing? Really?!?! So a system wherein insurance companies and HMOs compete with each other to screw as much money out of the public while providing as little of that there expensive medical care as possible brings out the best in the assholes? I can only imagine that without competition they morph into some huge encephalitic elder god bent on murdering existence...

1. "There can be no common good without personal greed".

Okay, fine, they don't say it like that. Mainly 'casue they've given up on even the idea of a "common good", but this is what's behind all the "trickle-down" talk, the bullshit about "rising tides lifting all boats". People believing this, and believing that a piece of paper with a government seal justifies it are the reason that fully half the resources of this country, hell, of the world, are owned by a tiny fraction of the population, who don't give a flying fuck about the "common good" and would sooner slit your throat and sell your organs on Ebay than part with even a fraction of their vast wealth.

To summarize:

Most of you reading this are members of the new global underclass (you are just lucky enough to be at the top of that particular shit heap). In all likelihood, no matter how smart you are, how creative, or how hard you work, you will stay a member of the new global underclass. Because like all caste-systems, you are born into it.

The people you work for, who likely pit you against your fellow workers, while pitting the company you work for against other companies in an endless drive to "beat" the "other" "team" are in all likelihood the also the owners of the "other team". They will continue to pit you against other people just like you to force you to accept lower wages, fewer benefits, and eventual indentured slavery because "competition brings out the best in people". These same asshats will then claim that any move made to bring any-level of fairness to this fucked up situation will result in global economic misery (like we don't have that now) because if they are not allowed to make obscene profits off of your hard labor, you won't receive your minimum wage paycheck next week.

Where's that rifle????

PS: Yes I have sources to back this up. No I didn't post them. Why should I go through the trouble, I mean look at the Tea Party, not only did they essentially take over America, they did it without siting any real sources! Mostly they just pulled xenophobic libertarian shit out of their fat ignorant asses and flung it into the public debate like so many masturbating zoo monkeys.

Can't beat 'em...

Hmmm...

I had this glorious plan.

I was going to write a scathing denounciation of wealth and the wealthy, to be concluded with a soaring call to arms, for the masses to rise up and smash the egocentric, greedy bitches who are actively destroying their fellow human beings and the very planet that supports us.

I was going to. Totally rip into it. Tear shit right the fuck up.

Then I did a bit of research.

I got depressed.

I laid down and took a friggin' nap, like an over-active toddler.

Shit is worse that most of you think, especially when its worse than I think.

More tomorrow.

Beer now.

9 black lambs to the slaughter

As the Revolution bellies up to the table and prepares to eat its young, I once again feel the need to break my already utterly shattered vow of Pollyannahood and let the rant fly.

At one o'clock today, an Icelandic court will hear the case against 9 protesters accused of "attacking the sanctity of Parliament".

9 black lambs are singled out of a flock of 30 so odd protesters that day, and out of the thousands who were routinely protesting all those long months. Singled out for attempting to walk through an unlocked door into a public building to reach a public seating area where the public has the right to observe its so-called servants work in the public interest. Parliament Security stops them, denies them access, and then attempts to physically block access and expel them. A scuffle breaks out and there are minor injuries on both sides. The police show up in seconds in an overwhelming show of force, one officer gets bitten whilst hurling a protester to the ground to be hogtied and chucked in the back of a paddy wagon. The 9 singled out for sacrifice at the alter of the sacred politic are charged with "attacking the sanctity of Parliament" and face a minimum sentence of 1 year's imprisonment, and a maximum of life (the maximum sentence for rape and murder is 16 years, and has to my knowledge never been imposed on a rapist).

They will likely be found guilty.

The whole situation sickens me, and raises some disturbing questions.

For starters, why these 9? Not one news report I've found has given any reason why only 9 of the 30 odd people involved are charged. While logically the two who managed to get to the viewing area and shout at the MPs to "get the fuck out of here" could be singled out, could it not also be because these 9 were members of the loose-knit black-clad mask-wearing groups who weren't protesting for new elections, weren't tied to existing political clans, and were in fact aiming for an actual revolution, instead of the pathetic coup d'etat we got instead? Why, in the midst of massive and disruptive protest, was the door to the viewing area unlocked? Had the protesters entered in stealth, clad in suits and Sunday best and telling the guards they were there to support the parties then in power, would they have been waved through? Could it be that the police, through whatever combination of incompetence, inexperience, and outright provocation managed to engineer all of the more "violent" incidents, decided to "allow" this protest to proceed in order to sweep in heroically and salvage their faltering support whilst tarring the protesters with the brush of treason? Why has the media, which has delighted in front-page photos of the banksters being arrested at this most conveniently distracting moment, hardly found the time to name the 9 individuals, let alone publish pictures and interviews (so far I've only found one interview, in today's paper, of one of these sacrificial black sheep)? Could it be that the powers that be, who rode into their current positions by latching on to the developing revolution like a tick to the hide, are hoping to appease the reactionary conspiracy theories of the ousted parties and "prove" they had nothing to do with the pot-pounding fire-lighting skril who did the ousting? Or could it be that they are quietly hoping to slip through a precedent that will make it easier to crush future protests?

30 members of the public push their way through a public entrance to a public building to reach the public seating area to give public servants a piece of their minds and they are charged with a serious crime. 60 some odd public servants sit for years in a public building "earning" public money while gifting public resources to political friends and family, lining their pockets with "campaign contributions" and "bullet loans" from bankster cronies, creating a "all animals are equal but some are more equal than others" pension plan, and eventually bankrupting an entire nation through a wicked brew of corruption, incompetence, and selfishness and these 9 black lambs are sent to the block, whilst the Judas goats go about their business, safe in the sacred confines of power, privilege, and ill-gotten wealth?

Where's that sledgehammer and can of gasoline?

When in Rómaborg...

I'm in a pissy mood.

Not angry, not enraged, not activated.

Just pissy.

Early Icelandic "spring" tends to bring this on. It teases you with a few fine days and then dumps more snow on your sunny dreams, while assignments and finals loom like storm clouds over the month of May.

It makes trivial trials harder to bear, like getting cussed out by my corpulent upstairs neighbor for keeping my recyclables, or in his words, trash, in "his" part of the heat-room. Never mind that I keep that place so much cleaner than before I moved in (what with removing the rank and rotting rubbish that my landlady tended to throw in there, being to lazy to take it out herself), sweeping regularly, and all that. Never mind that I cleaned up the building scrap he threw out of his second story window into the front lawn. Never mind that I keep the walkways and driveway snow free so his elderly mother doesn't break a hip getting to her taxi, or that he's left an old TV on my porch, keeps a rusty old car packed full of boxes in his driveway, and has never lifted a figure to help clean the place up.

I moved my recyclables out to the garage. I'd spent weeks getting it cleaned up and organized last summer, so I could use the covered space for remodeling work. Its now full of my landlady's daughter's stuff.

All this is annoying. But what has finally pushed me over the edge is, as usual, politics.

As usual.

The revolution is dead.

Actually, it was still-born.

As soon as the old government fell, everyone seemingly gave up. After all, we have the chance to elect the same old parties into power under the same old corrupt rules! Yay!

And while folks continue to struggle, while unemployment grows, banks continue to crash, businessmen award themselves bonuses while cutting employee pay, the "revolutionary" government of red/green beaurocrats passes laws to re-criminalise strip clubs, makes noise about re-criminalising boxing, and continues to "work" with the IMF.

The police, bless 'em, focus on expelling asylum seekers, hunting down marijuana farms, and confiscating poker tables, while the útrassavikingar continue to drain the country dry, siphoning cash off to tax-paradises while the powers that be argue about gender quotas.

Það er vont en það venst.

Oh sure, the peacenixs still got out to protest the 60th anniversary of NATO, and (here I'm not criticizing in the least) a series of protests has pointed out Iceland's self-serving and stealthily racist policy on asylum seekers, but is anyone planning anything in solidarity with the G20 protests?

Apparently just me.

So I sent out the call on the internets. And showed up to find the square empty. Walked around, listening for the rhythmic sound of pots pounded with spoons and the clang of house-ware revolution. I stood over the spots where you can still see the scorching from January's fires, now slowly filling in with half-frozen spring grass. I sat down with my pack full of improvised noise-makers and folded up signage, smoked my pipe, and fought the urge to just give up.

I don't blame anyone for not showing. Its not like I made a particularly coherent or moving call. Its not like I gave folks time. I sent the thing out last night around 9.

Hell, I showed up an hour late.

Because my corpulent neighbor needed me to shift my recycling so he could fit his fat ass into the boiler room and fiddle with the valves.

Apparently 45C wasn't hot enough for him.

I'm starting to see why Icelanders are so prone to self-serving stoicism. Its so much easier to roll with the punches than try to punch back...

Europris Bastards

So I have to amend my previous post.

Thanks to my idiotic decision to shop at the Walmart of Northern Europe, Europris, I find that my wish list requires the following additions.

Not that anyone has to buy this shit for me, just that if they want to, they can.

I won't complain.

I want a bike. More to the point, I want a bike that isn't held together by cheap plastic painted to look like metal. Like my Europris bike, Sid the Vicious Cycle. I've replaced one set of brakes (cheap plastic shattered), a seat (metal cracked) and recently had a petal break off (due to a "metal" rod snapping off to reveal its plastic interior). Add all that to the number of times the brakes have needed adjusting and the fenders fallen off and yeah, I need a new bike.

I also need some snow boots, preferable quite high above the ankle, black, and with a zipper. Unlike my Europris snow boots, which have laces, the hooks for which started to snap after two days wear. I'd like my Xmas boots to have a nice warm insulating interior, unlike my Europris boots that wore away after a week, forcing me to buy insoles so I wasn't walking on rubber ridges.

Thirdly, I'd like a snow suit, or kuldagalli, which is the single most proletarian piece of attire one can sport in Iceland now that krúttkynslóð appropriated the lópapeysur. Unlike the red and black one I bought from Europris, I'd like a snow suit equipped with a zipper that doesn't shred itself into uselessness after a month's use.

Finally, I'd like Europris to shove its collective head up its collective ass and burn in the fiery pits of Hades. With holly crammed up their nostrils and Xmas lights wired around their collective genitals.

Merry friggin Xmas.

With apologies to the bard...

...but is the winter of our discontent to be made glorious summer by this son of a bitch???

Today's blog called on account of rampant stupidity.

Some people just shouldn't be allowed to have kids....