The Hog Farm

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The Hog Farm's answer to Janis Joplin. Yellow Springs Ohio, circa 1969

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The First Time as Trage...yea, yea, I know

From here:

There was a small, nonviolent, "mild" anti-war protest in Denver today, timed to the upcoming Democratic convention. The protest organization is stupidly named "Recreate 68," but has specifically decried the violence at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Fox News of course wanted to cover this boring thing in the most insane way possible, with race riots and burning flags and naked hippies on PCP. None of that was available, so instead Fox sent a nerdy correspondent to go right into the middle of a throng of protesters trying to march in the opposite direction. The protesters managed not to collide with the camera crew, so no one was hurt, but they refused to grant interviews and started chanting "Fuck Fox News," which means they are Censor Fascists who hate the First Amendment. (emphasis added)

Now, way back when, when the Hog Farm (see picture) visited Antioch College at the behest of Warner Brothers to film the ultimate "hippie movie," they performed a concert on the lawn. Members of the aforesaid HF were dispersed across the grass in various attitudes of hippie repose, doing hippie thinks and smoking hippie stuff, while the band played Hendrix and JA ("airplane"). The students were so pissed off at being compromised that the entire scene was rendered useless by the louder and louder chant of "Fuck Warner Brothers."

The next time will be Farce (sic).

(I'll post some pics from that concert from way back when.)

Just Another Day in the Neighborhood

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Coalition air strikes kill 76 Afghan civilians: interior ministry
AFP-AFP South Asian Edition

Aug 22, 2008

A US-led coalition military operation in western Afghanistan on Friday killed 76 civilians, including 50 children and 19 women, the Afghan interior ministry said.(emphasis added)

Ho, hum. Just another day in the neighborhood. Better send more troops. Better redline the stupidity meter. (BTW, there's no oil in Afghanistan, Bin Laden is alive, and the Pakistanis hate us.)

Friday Crab Blogging

Eric assured me that there was a crab amongst these sea "creatures"; what can I say?

Kyla did well for her age; note the dress on the person

If they say "location, location" in Real Estate, we say "perspective, perspective" in this cubby hole of Art.

This child is actually borderline autistic and likes to draw. I try to put myself in his brain when constructing this crab. The little appendages are seen most frequently on human figures and signify toes (see below). The circular scribble in the center was an afterthought and, I suspect, represents coloring. Much food for thought (sic).

Joshua refused to draw a crab and insisted on a Jelly Fish. We will allow one Jelly Fish on alternate Fridays.





This is a picture of this youn lady's mom as she appears in her chic Oscar Night outfit (see through, you know). Please note the detail such as cupid lips and fingers (see above). In spite of an excellent drawing, she still had to get her Kindergarten immunizations. Life is tough sometimes.

(we will have much more to say about immunizations in the future; when we get time to say anything about anything)

Friday Crab Blogging

Decent crab
Needed a few tries
Elmo the Crab; actually very impressive transcription

One of twins
One of twins. There are certain similarities. Would be interesting to do a study and see how twins reconstruct reality.


One of two sisters
The other sister; can't let Michaela get ahead

Friday Crab Blogging

Excuse me....

Whoops! See Update below.

Excuse me, but do you think I'm an idiot? Why are we just now, almost seven years later, learning this?

Ivins's possession of the drying device, known as a lyopholizer, could help investigators explain how he might have been able to send letters containing deadly anthrax spores to U.S. senators and news organizations.

The device was not commonly used by researchers at the Army's sprawling biodefense complex at Fort Detrick, Md., where Ivins worked as a scientist, employees at the base said. Instead, sources said, Ivins had to go through a formal process to check out the lyopholizer, creating a record on which authorities are now relying. He did at least one project for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that would have given him reason to use the drying equipment, according to a former colleague in his lab.

This whole story just stinks to high heaven. From the false accusations of Hatfill to the planting of stories on ABC.

As with the Bush administration and war crimes. If this is not resolved we might as well pack up and go home. Except there is no home to go to.

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Update: Now Glenn Greenwald relays the information that the alleged perp, having conveniently committed suicide, actually would have had access to lypholizer in his work. You just can't win in this Bush America.

Friday Crab Blogging (a little late)

This fiesty crab was drawn by fiesty Morga(a)n
Well, detailed crab (from memory, as all crabs drawn here are)

Dad of the last artist. Complained that he couldn't draw a crab unless he had a model.The drawing is a little tight.



Yes, there are such things as "crab sandwiches", but they are SOFT crab sandwiches. Apparently across the pond, where this poster comes from, dentition is at a much more advanced level and able to crunch the adult crab's shell. Amazing.

General Betray Us

From here:

Overall violence in Iraq is declining to almost "normal" levels, General David Petraeus told USA Today in an interview published Tuesday, following a string of attacks the day before.

The commander of US forces in Iraq warned however that the trend could be reversed by "sensational attacks" like those Monday in Baghdad and Kirkuk that killed some 56 Iraqis.

"If you could reduce these sensational attacks further, I think you are almost approaching a level of normal or latent violence," he told the newspaper in a phone interview from Baghdad.(emphasis added)

Screw you General. A disgruntled jerk opens fire in a Tennessee church and kills two and the American press goes wild for two to three days. Is that what you call latent violence? In my opinion, you are one of the war criminals. I think many in the World feel the same.

We will see how you do after January 20.

Friday Crab Blogging

You can see why I am jealous of this crab, it has hair!

Friday Crab Blogging

We start wtih an anthropomorphic crab. Note the line above the eyes. While not the V of anger, it is the straight line of serious concern. Amazing what a line can convey. And, believe it or not, crabs ARE serious crustaceans.

Continuing the theme, note the relatively strict requirement of anthropomorphism in that to get a face, the artist has to include a balloon head, reminiscent of the stalk eyes.

Please excuse Hunter, he's from Boston and tends to drop his "r's".

As young as Will is, he still manages to get the claws on the crab's major appendages even though they resemble toes. (I don't know whether you have read any evo-devo, but it turns out that toes and claws are based on the same genes. The book to read is Sean Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo


Alexandra draws a good crab. She also expresses her cheerful personality with an anthropomorphic sun. This is a pretty ancient observation, dating back at least to the Egyptians and their sun god Ra.


Believe it or not, this is a crab. But, given the theme of today's Crab Blog, it fits right in. I asked the little girl if it was her. She said no, it was a crab.


For some children, crabs are secondary to buses.

As in previous posts on buildings, the number of windows shows an open personality. The path to the house and the flowers or shrubs are also signs of good social development. I'm a little puzzled as to why there are no windows on the first ("ground" for aliens) floor. It may show a little fear of intimacy.

Not only does Chloe have a sun, she has a sun flower. I'm not sure what the significance of the arms and legs coming straight out of the stick body, but it could be that she wants to be a cheerleader, but not like George Bush (arghh). Also not that she not only has fingers now, but she has hands.
Click on this picture to expand. There is a wealth of detail in this picture by Madison, more than I think I have ever seen.It didn't copy well but all the faces have eyes and mouths, only they are dots! Dad has a dog on a leash and is holding a flower? There are three, happy cats. But most interesting, is the length of the legs on both humans and dogs/cats. She gets extra points for toes and claws. There is even a ladybug or bird!


Finally, the Growlery sent in this crab picture for consideration. He assures me that it is not crab tea (i.e. see the bag tags on the right), but I still suspect that it is. In any case, our faith has spread across the pond and even in the former Empire (which we will soon be)they pay obeisance to the mighty Callinectes sapidus (from the Greek calli="beautiful", nectes="swimmer", and Latin sapidus="savory")

Dateline Nuremberg

Dateline Nuremberg:

LAW
The Truth About Torture
To get a full accounting of how U.S. interrogation methods were used, the president should give those accused of 'war crimes' a pass.

By Stuart Taylor Jr. | NEWSWEEK

The following people have requested a retrial due to the precedent set by President George W. Bush:

Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Funk, Streicher, Schacht, Doenitz, Raeder, Schirach, Sauckel, Jodl, Papen, Seyss-Inquart, Speer, Neurath, Fritzsche and Bormann.

(With apologies to Goodwin)

Incidentally, the following is a list of indictments used at Nuremberg:

1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace
2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace
3. War crimes
4. Crimes against humanity

A Simple Question

So, the chance that Israel will attack Iran to "take out its nuclear program" is becoming increasingly likely (as the lawyers say, greater than 50%). So, if Israel decides to attack Iran, and Iran retaliates but only against Israel, where does that leave us? Are we automatically drawn into the maelstrom? It must be brutal enough being an American soldier in Iraq, but to think that you could get your ass blown off because of some idiots in the IDF wanting to flex their toys would be too much to even contemplate.

Not with a bang but a whimper

The FISA "compromise" received almost no attention in the press. It is as if the concept of alternative realities has finally been realized (that sounds redundant; a realized reality). It appeared on page three of our paper.

More and more I find myself thinking about what civilian populations in a major power did while their country was at war in a distant place. First, let me think about some examples:

The Roman Empire during most of its existence, excluding the civil wars that were quite brutal (civil war is always more brutal; no known explanation;)

Spain during its Empire days;

Certainly the English Empire up until WWII; in spite of the devastation of WWI to its male population and treasury, Britain itself suffered no major attack (I think a few German airships flew over London and dropped some bombs; certainly nothing like the devastation of the battles of Somme or Verdun;)

Germany in WWII until the intensive bombing began.

Japan in the 30's up until the saturation bombing of Japanese cities during WWII. The opening salvo of this being the Doolittle Raid in 1942.

America in all wars, particularly Spanish-American, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq (war being our largest export product.)

I didn't watch the recent series on TV about the home front in America during WWII, and I can hardly remember it myself. But, while there was a lot of rationing and "hardship", it was nothing compared to the horror of living in a country that is a battlefield. Consider what it would be like to have lived in Hamburg, Dresden or Tokyo during a firebombing. It is literally incomprehensible to people who are not physically there, no matter how many movies we see or books we read about the experience.

As a result, and back to the initial point by a long circuitous route, Americans are tragically complacent. It just doesn't matter to them that 40, or 70 or 100 people die in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Darfur, etc. It is not a reality like the automobile accident out on the highway.

So, they don't give a damn about what George Bush does or the fact that Congress just took a big chunk out of the Constitution and literally absolved the telecom companies from breaking the Law. It just doesn't matter.

The Final Nail in the Coffin

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I will not review all the emotional ups and down that we have gone through concerning the Foreign Intelligent Security Act (FISA) in the last several years. Glenn Greenwald has done a superb job of documenting the capitulation of the American Congress to the imperial presidency. Today is truly a sad day for the rule of law. But then, we knew that.

More terrifying to me is that this may inaugurate a witch hunt for those that rightly shed the light of day on Bush's illegal activity. So, not only will the bloated telecoms get immunity, good men may go down.

Those we entrusted with our votes to preserve the Constitution have killed it.

Let the Hand Wringing Begin...

Well, it looks like the good ole USA is finally going down the tubes. While the pundits are not quite saying it, there is some clutching of pearls inside the Beltway (my God, the Beltway itself is awful; one takes one's life in one's hands in a bumper to bumper speedway simulacrum). And, liberal bloggers are starting to comment.

The most frightening analysis, though, was posted on Gorilla's Guides entitled: Why the USA can't leave Iraq. Quite simply, its the oil.

If you really don't think that the USA is in the slammer and heading for economic disaster after you read this, watch the video in the Crook's and Liars post: Dana Milbank: Economic Anxiety Disorder or One Nervous Bushie.

Iraq and Iran have vast amounts of oil. Americans of all stripes insatiable need for oil products. It is not very hard to imagine us justifying War in order to satisfy this craving.

New Motto: WILL DO JUST ABOUT ANYTHING FOR OIL!

(supplants the old one: "Lebensraum, said Daniel Boone!"; I know, I know, Godwin's Law.)

Friday Crab Blogging

The Sadness that is Iraq

We have heard almost nothing about Iraq in the American news these days. Yes, of course, there is always the air strike targeting "terrorists" or "insurgents," though all too often the victims are women, the elderly, or, ho hum, children. (Of course if there is a tragedy in Israel it makes the front page.)

Suddenly there is a flurry of the pundit's pens (or, I guess, a clatter of the keyboards.) Packard in the New Yorker says that Obama has a problem because: a) he promised to bring home the troops, albeit slowly but b) WE ARE SUCCEEDING IN IRAQ!. This is apparently a combination of Bush's surge, Petreus, cooperation of the Sunni's, and the coming of age of the Iraqi government. Break out the champagne. So, Obama's promise to bring home the troops, i.e. get our military out of Iraq where they never should have been, is a BAD IDEA.

In the New York Review of Books Michael Massing, a usually astute journalist, gets embedded with the Army in a Baghdad district (Dora) and comes to the same conclusion. We are succeeding! Break out the champagne (but not too much because it will take a long time and we have a long way to go, if only those Iraqi would cooperate. You know, they are just not grateful for all we've done for them. And why shouldn't the big oil companies reap all the profits from their oil. Why, just look at all they've done for the world!)

In 1865 Lewis Carroll published "Alice in Wonderland." Who knows the real meaning, if any, behind this work. What we do experience when we read this work is typical dream experience of up is downism. That there is a world where things that we ordinarily take for granted (like gravity, relationships, hierarchy) are all askew. This is how I feel reading these essays. All askew.

If it wasn't so serious; if it didn't involve the death of so many innocent children, if it didn't involve the destruction of a society and a peoples, I guess one could give this insanity a modicum of credence. But it is serious. It does involve the killing, yea the murder, of countless innocent children. And eventually, it will be rectified. Everything gets rectified eventually. It may take centuries, and be long after myself and Bush are pushing up the daisies, but it will be rectified.