The dumbest McDonald's TV commercial

Most TV commercials are an insult to ART - not just  to

     the moral and ethical values of the common people of America - the

    very backbone of democracy. In the make a buck business world FREE

    SPEECH is really just the right to lie or the right to exaggerate

    outrageously in order to make a deep mental impression on a potential

    consumer. A long time ago Vance Packard wrote a book -still worth

    reading -on the advertising industry : " The Hidden Persuaders ".

               Most TV commercials are not just innocent promotion of

    useful or useless products. They are collectively ruthless brainwashing

    - like something out of  " The Manchurian "  candidate : BUY THIS OR

    YOU WILL NEVER KNOW TRUE HAPPINESS !

               Pretty sinister stuff - SMILING FACES, lying faces !

         The latest McDonald's TV commercial - showing all those manic

    McDonald's customers - looking as if they were all high on speed

    or cocaine -  ranks with " Plan Nine From Outer Space " as a true

    classic of boob tube idiocy.

                  In fact frequent trips to McDonald's would make all

    these characters  fat and lethargic. Fast food does for your body in

    general what cigarette smoking does for your lungs.

          So the McDonald's commercial is as big a lie as any  cigarette

    advertising - showing all those happy, healthy KIDS !

                But thank God for FREE ENTERPRISE and the AMERICAN WAY !

Sad Catholic school girls

 I know how a Catholic school -whatever the sins of the Church -

    can own your heart.  What a sad picture in the Boston Herald today ( page 14,

    Jan. 30 ) showing two Monsignor Ryan Memorial High School students, Alyson

    Wuschke and Jessica Hayes , who " try to hold back tears upon finding out

    that the school is closing its doors permanently at the end of the school

    year ".

               Can money be the measure of ALL things, even mental torment ?

    Is it really so insensitive to asks if the victims of sexual abuse  are

    OWED millions by a religious institution that is funded by its numerous

    faithful, humble Catholics who give whatever they can afford to THEIR

    Church - founded by Christ Himself, they believe ?

            Do the victims of sexual abuse have an unlimited claim on the

    Church's treasury ? Can the righteous demand for justice hide GREED ?

                Let me ask a very unholy question : Just who OWNS the

    Catholic Church anyway ? Perhaps the next pope might wisely  put a

    FOR SALE sign on all church properties and  withdraw the 2000 year old

    religious institution  completely from the  BUSINESS world. All the

    cash collected can be sent to a United Nations trust fund for the world's

    most desperate poor people.

              It is not inconceivable - considering the totalitarian political

    organization of  the Vatican state - that it could just collapse just as

    suddenly and dramatically as the old Soviet Union  - which was also OWNED

    by the FAITHFUL - by the working people, you know.

                  Like  Russia, the Catholic should return to its original

    " socialist " innocence - minus a privileged and dogmatic bureaucracy.

                A simple faith and mysticism might characterize a purified

    Catholic Church.  A belief in Jesus as God unaided by Aristotle and Thomas

    Aquinas. A humble faith in the Church's oldest rituals.

            And ancient Latin IS the language of the faith just as  modern

    Italian  IS the language of opera .

             Just keep the Vatican Library with its Secret Archives. And

    Catholics can begin again at the beginning.

                  Caution : True believers might again be fed to the lions !

Bush's chance for re-election

Was it in March of 1968 - that awesome year ! - that Mr. Hubris

    himself, LBJ , said  in a solemn and melancholy tone : " I shall not

    seek.... "  He was FINISHED as president of the United States , destroyed

    by Vietnam , a war he could just not stop. He could not say NO to the

    mad bombers in the Pentagon.

               Next year around this time  President George W. Bush - a

    Texas cowboy like Lyndon Johnson - will, I bet, make a similar speech.

              It seems that the only way we could  save Iraq was to destroy

    it. But there were unexpected consequences. The American people asked

    themselves : " Are we safer from terrorism than we were four years ago ? "

             They asked : " Are we better off economically than we were four

    years ago ? "

             A smiling Hillary Clinton has just  won the New Hampshire

    primary.  Husband  Bill is beside her holding her hand -and smiling

    too, his face blushing its primary colors.

             Who says  history is bunk ?

WHJJ rude to Rodney Driver

           WHJJ invites the controversial pacifist Rodney Driver on

    its morning TALK RADIO yesterday but then The Independent Man , John

    DiPetro and  a regular caller, one  Peter Anthony -  now a militarist

    crackpot TRUE BELIEVER - were downright rude to this " guest " Driver.

          I recall the polite and restrained gentleman saying : " Is there

    any reason for  ME to be here ? "

               Fanatics are, of course, alike everywhere - on the Left and

    on the Right. Once you hear the VOICE OF GOD , democratic debate is

    almost insufferable. Just exhort the infidel to examine his wicked,

    wicked, soul. And direct him to the Ministry of Truth.

               I am no fan of Rodney Driver. He seems like a monomaniac.

    But he is a mental giant compared to the likes of The Independent Man

    and the pipsqueak militarist, Peter Anthony -of Craaanston .

Tired of BREATHING LESSONS !

             I like to browse in bookstores. I prefer to browse in second

    hand books stores like Cellar Doors in downtown Providence or the one

    with the charming name  " Twice Told Tales " in historic Pawtuxet, the

    scene of the burning of the Gaspee, an American Revolution legend.

                 Being an average neurotic I never fail to notice all

    those psycho-babble self-help books. ( " How to  Stay Young Forever "

    by a long dead medical doctor ... )   An " inspirational " book by

    a daffy quack from - where else ? -  California . How depressing to

    reach middle age without having learned his great SECRET - something

    in the category of transcendental meditation . And if you feel like

    a failure, you have nobody to blame but yourself , so says a dusty

    old paperback on Scientology .

                Coming out of Borders in Garden City, Cranston, I told

    an old friend who teaches math at URI that one particular bit of

    psychobabble has annoyed me for YEARS now : numerous books have

    whole chapters instructing the clueless reader in HOW TO BREATHE !

               You learn in elementary school that the our brains begin

    to die in two minutes if deprived of oxygen. So we the living must be

    doing something right in this complicated business of  BREATHING.

                I do know this about the pedantic personality : He or

    she BREATHES boredom on everything - even breathing !

               And most teachers succeed in curing their pupils of pernicious

    CURIOSITY for a lifetime. The comfortable class can breathe a sigh of

    relief. I fell through the cracks - so my brain did not suffocate.

A contradiction in affirmative action

After September 11  affirmative action seems to me a paltry

    controversy. But George Bush passed a minor character test when he

    reaffirmed his own conviction - against blatant racial favoritism.

             I believe that the desire to be well educated is so precious

    in our threatened  Western Civilization that no kid with this learning

    passion should be allowed to fall through the cracks of  institutionalized

    higher education.

             I say : HARVARD FOR EVERYBODY !  Are not elitist schools a

    mockery of American democracy ? They mass produce a very diversified

    bunch of SNOBS. It is a contradiction that a disadvantaged person

    seeks higher education in order to soon be able to look down on his

    own community from the heights of his newly " earned " social status.

             There is very little passion for equality in the human heart.

    The natural instinct is for advantage. But higher education should serve

    those with a true passion for EDUCATION -whatever their other motivations.

              There is a case here for McUniversity, I admit. But a true

    educational experience reinforces old fashioned American individualism.

    People who frequently visit public libraries have IT more than the

    millions who are hopelessly addicted to TV - and long estranged from

    books and reading - and even my precious daily newspaper !

               So if the kid loves learning - whatever his assigned

    cultural identity - send him to Harvard. Bill Gates will pay his

    tuition. Or perhaps are ubiquitous Mr. Feinstein.

No going backwards on abortion rights !

Perhaps the most powerful religious institution hostile to legalized

    abortion is the Catholic Church - now lacking all the moral authority of

    the not too distant past. Remember when even non-Catholic politicians

    dreaded the wrath of a cardinal, a prince of THE CHURCH ? In Boston

    HIS HOLINESS could make or break political careers.

           A nominal Catholic myself - who expects all hell to break loose

    when the present pope dies - I still find it nauseating to listen to

    the usual -extremely unctuous -anti-abortion sermons on Catholic TV

    while glancing at the lurid headlines of the heathen newspaper on my

    lap. Can abortion possibly be more sinful than THIS : the sexual abuse

    of innocent children by HIS priests - and so many of them  ?

             Anyway - thank God ! - we still have separation of church and

    state in this country. And that is very good thing. Not every sin

    can be judged also a crime against society. Judging by our health care

    system , we can only conclude that the RIGHT TO LIFE is dubious outside

    the womb.

           The type of pro-life Catholics who haunt women's clinics are

    clearly rather unbalanced individuals. You would not want them to

    babysit for you- if you have kids.

          At the moment of conception what we see is a LIVING BLUEPRINT

    of a human being -worthy of profound respect but definitely not the

    business of " POLICE... HOMICIDE "  .

             Nature has programmed human females to love their newly born

    babies. But a LOVE for fertilized eggs cells, for a mere fetus is

    the product of a fanatical moral imagination. It is a very institutionalized

    emotion. A product of religious FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS.

                      And God is not a Republican ! And this right to

    life is more often than not - a right to a hell of a life !

              I think we can celebrate Roe vs. Wade 30 years later.

A dearth of EMPATHY on Talk Radio

           WHJJ's " Independent Man " - like other talk show bullies -

    attracts like minded dimwits to his  program. TALK RADIO is dominated

    by the far right just as the universities are dominated by a daffy

    form of liberalism we call " political correctness ".

            At least this " liberalism " has heart. There is dearth of

    EMPATHY on talk radio.  Yesterday an immigrant lady in poor health

    and needing help with her heating bill was classified as the " scum

    of the earth " by a fan of the " Independent Man ", John Di Petro.

              Other callers -as they usually do with the desperate poor -

    focused on her character flaws.  I guess the difference between the

    haves and the have nots of the world can -quite simply- be explained

    by  CHARACTER.

                The false consciousness of America's neurotic- and INSECURE

    - white middle class can lead in the direction of Nazism.

             The American Hitler will get his start - his first big break-

    as a radio talk show host.  Somebody like DR. Phil who will preach

    TOUGH LOVE as a solution to our most embarrassing social problems.

               How dumb of God to create so many LOSERS !

             Don't believe most people when they say they just love

    FREEDOM.  As author Erich Fromm observed in his  classic " Escape

    from Freedom " , the authoritarian personality is very common in

    our capitalist society.

              Fromm believed that a whole social order can be judged

    INSANE. Something to think about anyway !

Pedestrian Unfriendly Cranston

 I knew it would happen and soon - in pedestrian unfriendly

    Cranston, R.I. - also the city with the worst credit rating in the

    country. A few months ago I sent a letter to editor warning about the

    danger of crossing Reservoir Ave even at crosswalks. It was ignored.

            Yesterday I read on page B-3 of the  Providence Journal ( Jan. 14 ):

         " Traffic victim identified as Cranston woman ". RIP 83 year old

    Caroline Angelosanto.

            Where I routinely cross not far from where Caroline was killed

    -and where almost a year a ago a stray Rottweiler ambushed me - at the

    intersection of Reservoir and Legion - there is a treacherous crosswalk.

               Soon after the pedestrian sees a flashing WALK signal, a

    driver stopped at Legion sees a flashing  DON'T WALK signal. It should

    flash CAUTION PEDESTRIANS instead.  Someday - I am sure - this headline

    will appear on page B-3 : " Crank letter writer killed by a car on

    Reservoir ". As Nero said of himself : " But what an artist is no more ! "

" Class war " - an old political theme

 On the front page of " The Christian Science Monitor " Jan. 9

    this headline : " A political theme emerges: class war ".

               In general I'm inclined to pacifism and compromise rather

    than set off ANY war. But why does a country  willing to spend trillions

    on its military pretend that  CLASS WAR is somehow irrelevant to explaining

    the BIG PICTURE ? Why is the theme of class warfare - which like EVOLUTION

    in biology explains  much in human history - why is it nearly taboo in

    the respectable news media ?

                  Like the religious instinct there is something  those

    horrible Marxists called class consciousness. And we live in a culture

    where even political correctness conspires with reactionary opinion to

    smother it. Diversity is glorious, but class solidarity -independent of

    race and ethnic groups - is a nightmare for the ruling class  which seems

    to worship the  world market more than God Almighty.

                  The world market -without looking for rogues and villains -

    simply does not and cannot justly distribute the world's wealth.

                 It is not Marxist paranoia to believe that the EXPLOITATION

    of the many is the basis for the vast wealth of the few .

                   No degree of intellectual or physical superiority can

    explain the gap between the haves and the have nots. An inhuman economic

    machine -global capitalism - cruelly divides humanity.

                  Most conservatives try to rationalize the unacceptable.

    They think the root of all evil is the LIBERAL MENTALITY - which prevails

    nowhere except on Ivy League molehills.

                    Liberalism can at times indeed be mindless. But it is almost

    never heartless.

Good news for Rhode Island drunks

I know for a fact that there are very many hard core drunks

    in the Ocean State. And just about every guy and gal leaving a bar

    around midnight is more than legally drunk. Drunkenness in Rhode

    Island, I suspect, accounts for no small percentage of the already

    DENSE population. It definitely increases the number of cretins per

    square yard in the Greater Providence area - and no doubt helps

    to replenish the prison population.

               This week irresponsible journalism tells us how good

    booze is for our hearts - the more regular drinking the better !

              And how many broken hearts  does regular drinking account

    for ? How much avoidable misery ?

                 I have a friend who was a regular drinker. In fact

    how convenient it was for him to rent a room above the old Gaspee

    Lounge in Pawtuxet.  Today his heart is ticking as well as ever.

    But  years ago he was told he had the liver of an 80 year old man.

          And have you noticed that YOUTHFUL look in regular boozers ?

           Next thing  they'll be telling the ladies how good male

    semen is for their complexion !

                 Can't decadence just be an end in itself ? Just

    ANYTHING to get us through the day or the long dull nights  !

Hornoff sounds off ( R.I. detective )

 What a  story ! The Warwick Police detective, Jeffrey Scott

        Hornoff, who served six years in prison for a murder he did not commit!

              When they make the Hollywood movie find some actor from central

         casting - with an OBNOXIOUS image - to play  former Rhode Island

        Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse. Interviewed by local TV news

        yesterday, Sheldon was awkwardly LAUGHING and SMIRKING as he defended

        whatever his role in the  Hornoff tragedy.

                   And this  smug,conceited DEMOCRAT wanted to be our next

        governor. Hornoff pointed out that the news media here - including

        the Warwick Beacon - showed no passion for truth in investigating

        the case, the 1989 murder of Victoria Cushman.

                   Hornoff now pukes when he hears the JUSTICE SYSTEM.  And

         we need a death penalty with this arrogance and incompetence and

        inhumanity running the courts ?

                   And let me just add that NOBODY in a DEMOCRACY should

        routinely addressed as YOUR HONOR. There is very little HONOR

        among robed fools.

                          Our heartfelt compassion for Jeffrey Scott Hornoff .

Deep Thoughts on the RIPTA bus

Being a RIPTA regular -even proud of my monthly bus pass - I

    expect to overhear nothing but the most brainless conversation - no

    insult to proles ( it's just the CULTURE , stupid ) . But  the Sunday

    trip - which begins at the NUT HOUSE ( to be very politically incorrect)

    and ends  in downtown Providence - was a cerebral surprise: The blue

    collar bus driver - who sounded like  Archie Bunker - suddenly and

    incongruously disputed the meaning of that buzz word FREEDOM  with a

    passenger who sounded more like an Ann Rand crank than a crazed LIBERAL.

                   The bus driver thought that billions and billions of

    dollars spent on the military was well spent - " the price of freedom ".

                The crank pointed out that if we were truly FREE we would

    not have those odious social security numbers - that TELL ALL about us

    to a sinister BIG BROTHER.

                  I can only conclude that the major political parties just

    don't get it. In fact, I don't get it myself. I find solace only in

    horror fiction lately. Just re-read " The Outsider " by Providence's

    very own H.P. Lovecraft. I suspect that " Grandpa " would have found

    lots of inspiration on a RIPTA bus !

Support for Surgeon's Strike

Fed up with the high cost of malpractice insurance, a

    number of American surgeons actually went on strike last week.

              I sympathize with their strike. Surgeons have as much right

    to be fed up with working conditions as teachers, air traffic controllers,

    police officers, fire-fighters , garbage collectors.

             The long range solution for their problem is literally to go

    out of BUSINESS !  A national health care plan will make outrageous

    malpractice suits a  nightmare of the pass.  Health care will be

    recognized as a universal right. But since doctors are only human, the

    more rational health care system will simply  deal humanely with their

    tragic mistakes. Is it right to rob a whole hospital of millions of

    dollars  to compensate a few unfortunate victims of malpractice ?

                 Poor cancer patients will be completely neglected

    because a rich lady's  cosmetic surgery left her hideous ?

               Doctors must again see themselves as PROFESSIONALS -not

    business partners in the health industry.

             Where have you gone Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Marcus Welby ?

The draft IS democratic, Bob

           Good morning, Bob. I agree that the draft simply cannot

    be UNTHINKABLE in any country that calls itself democratic.

           After all the COUNTRY was attacked by ruthless fanatics on

    Sept. 11. Last night I watched a  documentary: " The Greeks ".

         One scholar made the point that democratic Athens had no

    problem assembling an  ENTHUSIASTIC army to rout the Persians

    at Marathon. When people feel the state to be THEIR state -whatever its

    flaws - they don't even wait to be  drafted - the young and the

    vigorous - when  THEIR state is threatened.

             But think of all those spoiled brat rich kids in Kuwait.

    Iraq is THEIR menacing neighbor.  Iraq invaded Kuwait more than a

    decade ago. Will the ruling class of Kuwait contribute only money

    for its own defense, laughing at poor working class American kids

    - the cannon fodder for another bloody war ?


               Imagine a working class American soldier coming home

    with combat fatigue - finding his family literally left in the cold

    for not paying the oil bill on time !

              Working class soldiers might quickly conclude that the

    only war that makes sense is  CLASS WAR - and that can be fought

    by peaceful means, by something called POLITICS.


              But try preaching WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE to the storm

    troopers of Allah !

              I'm ready for an early draught of beer.