perfidy

Special Roving Correspondent GeekLethal, the lethalest geek that ever walked the mean streets, has reminded me of this piece that I wrote about a year ago before my webloggin' days. From the glass-lined tanks of old Latrobe, I tender this loving tribute to the faded genius of funk master and crackhead George Clinton (paint the white house black!) for your personal enjoyment. "33."

In response to his question, "John-0, If you had a gun to your head and had to choose only one Parliament record to have forever, with the rest facing certain and permanent destruction, which would it be and why?" I answered the following:
Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome.

Why?

Of all of Parliament's albums, from the early weird shit like "Osmium" or "Up For the Down Stroke," to the later shit like "Trombopulation," "Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome" achieves the best balance of forces. Like Funkadelic, Parliament's evil twin, Parliament's career has three phases: half-baked, baked, and too baked to get up to pee.

Parliament's early music has its' undeniable high points-- "Testify," "All Your Goodies are Gone" and " Up For the Downstroke" all qualify. But overall, the early records suffer the same fate as early Funkadelic-- half-assed production, too many drugs in the studio, and more ideas than
George Clinton knows how to stuff into 40 minutes of music.

Conversely, the later albums suffer from the opposite problems-- overpolished production, WAY too many drugs, and a dearth of original ideas combined with a creeping desire to appeal to the
disco set. Under no circumstances should you ever buy "Trombopulation" or its Funkadelic
equivalent, "The Electric Spanking of War Babies" unless you are a longtime fan of the hardcore jollies.

But for a golden period in the middle of their career, Parliament made lowbrow high-concept albums in outer space, underwater, in nursery rhymes, entombed in the Pyramids, and made it all work. The best of these is "Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome." As I'm sure you're aware, the album chronicles the battles of Starchild against Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk, and
Sir Nose's attempt to stop the power of the bop gun from funkatizing the masses with the torpid vibes of the Placebo Syndrome (don't fake the funk, or your nose will grow). Starchild is of course victorious, and Sir Nose finally gets up, gets shot with the bop gun, and shakes his motorbooty under the influence of the Flashlight.

Everything on the album works-- the "straight" funk jams like "Bop Gun" and the title track, the bizarre slow love jams like "Wizard of Finance," (my personal favorite love song P-Funk ever did) the weird political songs like "Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk [Pay Attention-B3M]", and the all out motherfuckers "Flash Light," which track proves once and for all that (Julliard-trained!) Bernie Worrell and (an uncredited!) Bootsy Collins are the now and future presidents of the world. Please note that most of the bass on this recording is handled by Cordell "Boogie" Mosson, a wonderful bassist eclipsed by Bootsy's star power, but Bootsy is believed to have played both
bass and guitar on "Flash Light."

Furthermore, writing this here has made me want to hear it, really really bad.

Last night, in a surprise reversal of fortune (all was juuuust fine when I went to bed in the second), the Rams defeated my beloved Browns to secure a playoff berth and deny one to Cleveland.

What everyone must understand about the Browns is they are always the handmaidens to destiny. In fact, that goes for all Cleveland teams. Consider the following:

Cleveland Cavaliers, 1989. "The Shot." Craig Ehlo quixotically tries to play aggressive D against a not yet superhuman Michael Jordan in a playoffs-deciding game. Jordan gets angry, and murders the Cavs, propelling the Bulls to the playoffs. The Bulls go on to win their first of many, many championships.

Cleveland Browns: the Cardiac Kids versus the Steel Curtain, 1970s. Who won? In fact, who won it ALL, FOUR EFFING TIMES? Who gets their likenesses on Iron City beer cans every year? Who's dirtier than a pig farm and half as pretty? You frickin' guess.

Cleveland Browns and Bernie Kosar (a): The Drive, 1986. Denver Broncos QB John Elway ("Horseface") takes the ball 95 yards for a TD, forcing the 1986 AFC title game into overtime. The Denver D orchestrate a quick turnover and Horseface orchestrates a quick field goal, thus making his name as one of the great ones. Great assholes, that is.

Cleveland Browns and Bernie Kosar (b): The Fumble, 1987. Actually two fumbles. In the AFC title game(sound familiar?) Kevin Mack fumbles early in a rematch with the Broncos. The resulting loss of TD results in a browns-down-by-7 scenario later in the game. With less than two minutes to play, the Browns threaten to tie the game at 38. Kosar's handoff to Ernest Byner on the draw play results in a goal-line fumble, recovered by Denver. Denver wins, again. The Browns never again field a team worth speaking of, and eight years later are dissolved. Meanwhile, Horseface goes on to a Hall of Fame career.

Cleveland Indians: The Great Disappointment, 1997. After a five-decade World Series drought, the Indians make it to game seven, inning eleven, against the expansion Marlins. A tiring Chuck Nagy throws a sleeper to rookie shortstop Edgar Renteria, who drops one to short center thus scoring the winning run. The Indians never again threaten to make the World Series, their run of quality teams eclipsed by the rise of the Yankee Machine and an uptick in the fortunes of the Red Sox.

So, there you have it. If it's down to the clutch, and a Cleveland opponent is in a position to make the playoffs, win the playoffs, or become legend, always bet against Cleveland.

[wik] Thanks to "Tam" for kindly pointing out that I got the year wrong of the Indians' humiliation. Rest assured-- it was a typo.

[alsø wik] News flash: I'm a moron when I haven't had my coffee.

Uncle Jam himself, George Clinton, was arrested Saturday in Tallahassee for possession of cocaine and a crack pipe. Clinton admitted to the charges, so we can't treat him as President of Stankonia, political prisoner, but rather as an aging hipster whose considerable luster is fading fast.

What the hell, George?

I mean, acid, pot, shrooms, peyote, even straight coke was excusable for a man of your station. It was the '60s. It was the '70s. It was the '80s. You're Starchild, Mr. Wiggles, The Long Song, The Bop Gun, leader of the Funkonauts and purveyor of the wisdom of the pyramids. You found the One. You backed up the booty and spanked that ass. Your face is on the funky dollar bill. Your mother did the Cosmic Slop. You entered the Nappy Dugout and the Witches' Castle and came out alive. You tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe. You turned on the flashlight and funkatized millions. You're the greatest huckster, talent scout, songwriter, and pussy hound a barber college ever produced. You made William "Bootsy" Collins into BOOTSY COLLINS, Funkzilla. You made Bernie Worrell's right hand into Beethoven and his left hand into a porn star. You made Mudbone Cooper, Gary Shider, Eddie Hazel, and a cast of thousands into a host of multicolored angels. When Dre and Snoop boosted your sound, that was cool. They brought you along for the ride. You're a king to us all.

You made doo-wop into funk, and funk into funkadelic. You put the funk into rock and the rock into funk. You put Three Blind Mice and Old Macdonald on the dancefloor.

Even when your powers diminished, we kept faith. We bought "Hey Man.... Smell My Finger" and "T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M." We came to see you again, and again, and again, as the P-Funk All-Stars Tour Without End kept rolling like the greatest medicine show, tent revival, circus, and swingers' party the world has ever seen.

And yet, in the end, maybe you didn't rise above it all like you vowed you would back in '71. Even then we knew it was a huckster thing, but it's still sad to see.

Crack?

Crack? I mean, dude. You know who does crack? Crackheads.

Rosemary (Dean's World) points out the following post, written from a "Christian" moral perspective, on gay issues. Here's my response...

You want someone to challenge your logic, or challenge your assumptions. I wonder if you have looked at what you've written, and have an understanding of the assumptions therein. My short list:

1. You assume some may view you as fascist. This is highly unlikely; by inserting this drastic word, you grant yourself immunity -- you can say, "I am not that bad. I am not that extreme".

2. You assume homosexuality is a choice. As others have pointed out, the act is a choice, but the feelings are not. Unless you have a mechanism for knowing what's inside someone else's head, you're just going to have to take their word for it. I certainly won't pretend to know what goes on in your head.

3. You assume concepts drive human beings. We are many parts logic and many parts emotion.

4. You state that there is a high correlation between drug use and homosexuality without providing a single serious source. Without an unbiased source this does not stand.

5. You provide no examples of "all sorts of unfortunate consequences", with which we might connect homosexuality. What consequences, exactly, are you speaking of?

6. You indicate that disagreement with the "choice" theory is in fact "denial". This is only true if the "choice" theory is in fact true. If the choice theory is wrong, then there is no denial. Support your choice theory with actual evidence, generalize it, and then perhaps you have a denial argument. Otherwise, nothing.

7. You indicate that the position holding that AIDS is not a homosexual disease is once again "denial"; denial is against your pattern of morality, therefore such denial is immoral. Homosexuality is emotion and a set of physical choices, made in the context of those emotions. Certain physical choices in the gay male community have resulted in increased rates of AIDS in that community. There are millions of heterosexual persons all over the world who've made certain physical choices, and AIDS has been the result. Statistically most AIDS victims in the world are heterosexual. There are numerous other sexually transmitted diseases, the very vast number of which are equally available to hetero- and homo-sexual persons. Is there some reason why you single out AIDS, as opposed to other diseases, as an indicator of lack of morality? Perhaps you intend that _any_ sexually transmitted disease is evidence of behavior that contradicts your moral pattern.

8. You state that the homosexual population "at large" should "accept responsibility". For what? What should they confess to? If you are referring to the "homosexual disease" notion, you need to back that up with some kind of statistical evidence. I don't see it. If you're referring to the "choice" argument, prove its a choice, and we can talk. You haven't proven it. You've _stated_ it.

9. I must confess that I do not know what a "bug-chaser" is. If I did, I would probably disagree with you.

10. You indicate that there are homosexual "demands". You make several assumptions: First, that homosexuals are the only ones who want these social changes to happen. I am happy to be your first counter-example. Second, you assume that the homosexual community is homogeneous in demanding, rather than supporting. It is highly unlikely that the gay community is sigificantly unlike any other community in this regard -- a minority of persons feel extremely strongly about an issue and press very hard, while most simply favor one side or the other and go about their lives. I am certain that within your Church community, you find a similar spectrum of activity with regards to gay issues.

11. You make the rather ridiculous assumption that 100,000 happy, lifelong monogramous gay couples do not presently exist. I'm just one guy who barely knows any gay people at all, and I know two couples like that. Come to think of it, that's 50% of the gay people I know. ;) Do that math on that.

12. You make the assumption that there is something that needs to be _proven_ to you, or to other people, at all. Why should gay people have to do _anything_ to convince you of the "correctness" of their lifestyle? At which point, exactly, did your particular brand of religion become a benchmark? The founders of this country were very explicit in their desire that religion be a fundamental freedom. The heart of that is the notion that personal religious choices _must_ be protected; to ensure that, the _public_ does not make such choices. Where possible, society usually chooses to engage in religious acts in circumstances that are _voluntary_, thus ensuring personal religious choice.

13. You make the assumption that homosexuals are offended (and "adolescent") by your notion that morality be a part of marriage. My opinion is that they are not offended by the notion; they're offended by your definition of morality. You confuse the two. Of course "morality" can be part of the marriage discussion, but you've got to agree on what that is. You've made no argument as to the correctness of your "morality", other than your opinion that it is in fact the "best". History gives us a lot of examples within your religion and others of people saying it also. You might want to provide some evidence you're right.

14. You're not advocating responsbility and morality. You're advocating acceptance of a moral framework, then defining responsibility as the act of gauging oneself according to that framework. Can there be no responsibility outside that framework?

15. You assume that the teachings of today's Churches (or religions) do, in fact, represent a "combined wisdom of ages". Give the fact that historically most repression, violence, and hatred has had religion at the core, how do you presume this? Personally, I think organized religions have a hell of a long way to go before they can presume to tell anything to anybody about morality.

16. You state that you're not going to "give up and let homosexual advocates freely erode our standards". You assume that "your" standards are "our" standards. You also assume that something like gay marriage represents an "erosion" of standards. Feel free to give evidence for either one of these assumptions.

The point by point is over, but...I have to agree with Dean on how short the conversation _should_ be, ideally.

If we start with the notion that all persons are equal in this country, we note that the structural institution of marriage conveys with it a certain relationship with the state (taxation, granting of power of attorney, right to visit, etc). This particular state is granted to married persons. Is this special relationship a "reward" that the state provides to encourage marriage? It is not. The government provides a means with which we can define familial bonds, and thereby derive the answers to many other important questions, such as responsibilities of a person (parent to child, man to wife), inheritance, accessibility (next of kin for health purposes), genetic compatibility (cousins marryin') and so on.

You want to _deny_ this choice to two people who happen to be gay. You don't know these people and their lives have no intersection with yours. This falls squarely into the "telling other people what to do" category. Why should you be allowed to tell other people what to do?

Well, there might be some _direct_ effect on you, and there are _indirect_ effects. I am quite hard-pressed to think of a direct effect on you, Nathan, if two gay men in Iowa get married. So I assume that you are talking about indirect effects.

Which brings us back to the "consequences" argument above: You made the assumption that being gay brings a host of negative consequences without providing any examples that this is so. You could try to find some correlation between homosexuality and crime rates, or homosexuality and tax evasion, or homosexuality and any other generally agreed _secular_ negative phenomenon, I guess. Maybe you can dig something up that shows a "decay" of that type. If so, bring it on. You have a path to legitimacy there. Contravening your personal moral code doesn't count.

You do have a right to educate your kids as you see fit, and it seems you have taken that path. The generally agreed-upon standard that we have in society is that we favor tolerance. If someone is gay, let them be gay. If someone is X, let them be X. But we also teach that if someone swings their fist and impacts your nose, you don't need to let them swing their fist.

Are you saying that you believe tolerance towards gays (and other groups) should not be taught in schools? Or do you believe that intolerance should actively be taught? You are unclear on this point. The consensus within society is, at the moment, that being homosexual is no big deal. You don't have a right to punch someone in the face for being gay. Teaching kids that it's not OK to punch someone in the face for being gay is not the same as encouraging them to be gay. I remain perplexed as to why certain religious conservatives cannot make this distinction.

So the core of this argument becomes: How does this affect you at all? What logic or justification provides you with the right to control the definition of marriage and grant or deny a relationship with the state as a result? What justification do you provide for imposing your will on other people by creating inequity with respect to the state?

I haven't seen any yet.

Later...

Having read more on the original writer's site, I deeply regret having written a damn thing at all. I figured it was part of a serious conversation on the nature of the relationship between morality, majority, states, and individual rights. What I found was the rants of a guy who hasn't dealt with the shit in his life, and has a shiny new hammer called Belief, which apparently is good for screwing screws and sawing boards, in addition to pounding sand and carving turkeys.

I quoted "Christian" above 'cause I'm not sure who this guy thinks he represents. I know it isn't the serious, thoughtful, and tolerant Christians that I know, and am pleased to call friends.

Hanah Metchis of Quare points to a list of the five most common geek social fallacies. Go read: I bet you find something familiar in there.

As a former sufferer of GSF1, 4, and sometimes 5, I can sympathize with those afflicted, but my sympathy dwindles as I get older, jaded, and less tolerant of, well... most things.

Long-time and observant readers will recognize a connection between GSF1 (no-one shall be excluded, no matter how obnoxious, useless, or smelly) and the concept of the "spare" as explained by Minister Buckethead.

Reason's Hit 'n' Run (now with more raisins!) has a post up about the "last acceptable prejudice." In this case, it's Italians, and the party taking offense is the "Sons of Italy Commission for Social Justice."

Jeez. Better watch out or you're in for a kneecapping.

Sheesh. Everybody knows that the following groups are still wide-open for mocking, stereotyping, and derision of all kinds: White males (uptight, square, and nefarious, yet oddly bumbling and emasculated); rednecks (g'hyuk!); lesbians (non-lipstick variety); homosexuals (as long as it's by homosexuals); Canadians (with their beady eyes and flapping heads); native Americans (redskins, chief Wahoo); black people (as long as it's done onstage at the Apollo); fat people (the degenerate slobs!); liberals; conservatives; environmentalists; Mormons; Catholics; Jews; Muslims; English people; the Irish (they eat their dead!); intellectuals; Latinos; little people; and the blind.

Of course, the last truly acceptable prejudice is against clowns. F*cking clowns.

Jesse at Pandagon, which site I just don't link to enough, has posted his list of the twenty most annoying conservatives of 2003. It's a good list. The President's not on it. 'course, he's not a conservative either. Enjoy!

[wik] In the interest of real, actual fairness and balance, I will note that Right Wing News have responded with a list of the Twenty Most Annoying Liberals. In keeping with John Hawkins' demeanor, it's not as funny as Jesse's list, but it's pretty spot-on about the annoying part.

The Japanese are small and industrious, and wish to enslave us.
The Soviets are devious sociopaths, hell-bent on a Satanic mission of infiltration and subjugation.
The Mexicans are indolent and lazy.
The Italians? Chaos! Lock up your women!
The French? Quislings! Watch your back!
The Germans? You mean, the Hun?
Arabs? "You have to understand the Arab mind," Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. "The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face."

Oh, man oh man. I mean, is that really an attitude we want in a US military officer in Iraq? What about that hearts and minds thing?

I wouldn't lay blame specifically on soldiers in the field who are doing the best they can in the face of insurgency, chaos, and a lack of clear and sensible command mandates. Stereotyping is good for one thing, for good or bad: reducing a percieved overload of information and priorities to simple terms to that you can get on with your life. Given the knotty situation our soldiers on the ground are dealing with, it's no surprise that some of them have become jaded, as Capt. Brown's quote suggests.

Nevertheless, stuff like this suggests a lack of groovy come-togetherness of the kind that will make Iraqi citizens into our allies. This site has written before about the importance of getting Iraq's people on or near our side-- you nkow, by winning their hearts and minds by repeated shows of integrity, trust, competence, and tough/fair open-mindedness-- and as the political side of the libervasion seems increasingly aimless, the happy fuzzy groovy side only becomes more crucial. Dammit.

Bizarrely, I found a piece by Newt Gingrich on the importance of winning the hearts-and-minds war in Iraq. Well, that in and of itself is not so bizarre, but what is, is that I agree with him about how things are going (not well-ish), and why (plans? um...why do you ask?). It's a crazy world where Citizen Newt and I share an opinion.

TM Lutas: Islamists believe that there is one God, he sent prophets down to Earth and the last one was Muhammed. If you believe in this, you get to live a first class life. If you have some other interpretation and only believe in some of the prophets, you get to pay discriminatory taxes and live as 2nd class citizens. Everybody else converts or dies. That's their belief system. Nice pagans get killed, nice atheists get killed, nice hindus, nice buddhists, the whole nine yards. Whether or not you are a decent human being is irrelevant. Read their stuff and understand what they are saying. Combine that ideology with the simple technical fact that it's getting easier every year to build WMD and you have a ticking time bomb. One day, the people who believe in this ideology will have their own shiny red buttons and will be able to enact their dreams of mass genocide. If they die in the process, they get their 72 virgins so it's all ok in the end by their lights.

A practitioner of Islam is not an extremist. An extremist is an extremist. Every religion has them. The socio-cultural circumstances of the origin states of Islam have resulted in a surplus of extremism for that religion, unfortunately. Each of the major religions has some pretty crazy stuff in it.

Judaism has pretty much been able to characterize many of its quirks as "tradition"; for example, foods that are not eaten are not necessarily viewed as "commands from God", but rather as continuations of tradition, critical to cultural survival.

Christianity sits a little farther away from this, with some issues being stamped with "word of God" status.

Islam is, to its detriment, a more structured religion, with quite a few direct commands from God. As such they are less flexible, less able to bridge across change in society. Their culture has paid an enormous price for this inflexibility, over time.

The point is, we are not dealing with a universal whole. Do you truly believe that 99% of Arabs/Muslims in the world want people who are different to suffer? I do not. I believe in an absolute morality. I don't put very much into that category, but essential tolerance and goodwill towards your fellow man are definitely there.

My main point is this: I firmly believe that the only way to control extremism within a given target population is to bring the bulk of that population to our side. We will never be able to stamp out extremism within another culture. The members of that culture are capable of stamping it out themselves, though, which they will do if a positive cultural relationship is established. This is not a PollyAnna vision; the Nazis were decimated as a social entity, ultimately, through the changes the German people themselves enacted, over decades. They decided to be something different than they were.

We need an environment where the average citizen in a "muslim" country views extremists the way Germans view Nazis. As we move towards a future containing the "super-empowered angry man", we must rely on social means as our primary defense. We make it very difficult for an average person to come to our side when we casually discuss extreme solutions, like turning the Middle East into a glass ashtray, or "eliminating" the only religion they have ever practiced, from the world. It is the wrong starting point for the discussion.

You make in case, in the linked entry, that "spiritual warfare" should not be overlooked as a means of change in this asymmetric conflict. There are a number of problems with your approach.

• Are you really talking about forced conversion to another religion? How do you propose to accomplish this? What religions will be on the "list" of "bad" religions? Or do you propose that we simply forcibly convert everyone to Christianity?
• How do you suggest that the US project its power across the entire world to accomplish this? The Muslim population in the US is simply not a threat, and is in fact the most powerful weapon we have to counter prejudice in other countries. Our Muslim population is free to live their lives and worship their God in any way they see fit, and they choose to do so.
• What time scale do you see accomplishing this? Religions have been present, persectured, evolved, and cast aside for thousands of years. Pogroms have been remarkably ineffective at eliminating the fundamental cultural continuity of Judaism, in spite of thousands of years of trying. What factors make you believe that you can accomplish this, within your given risk time frame of a single lifetime?

I respect the fact that you are trying to solve the problem, and reaching for any solution you can. To me, what you are doing is advocating that it is better to do something, anything...than to do nothing, even if that action means that the situation will become worse.

As with virtually every complex endeavor, we need to really think about the consequences of what we do and choose, in a sober manner, those paths with the highest probability of success.

What sociological implications, world-wide, do you see for your religious suppression? How controllable are those implications? Remember that the US military cannot suppress this kind of behavior in one small country. The military can defend against almost any threat, but they cannot change hearts and minds. They're not set up to do it.

Islam in this country is not the problem. Followers here are, with virtually complete agreement, quite aware that they have far more freedom and potential in their lives than practitioners in the old world.

My solution is a combination of "Good Samaritan", principled stands, true ethics in international relations at the economic level, and decentralization within the US. I will write another time about decentralization...it is a key defense concept.

Dear AL,

Must be great to be you, what with the keeper-of-the-truth T-Shirt you got from God, or wherever. I lost mine a while back. Or, I think I used to own one. I'm not sure.

Let's assume that we're both reasonably intelligent people, capable of figurin' on our own.

We reach our opinions through a combination of experience, trusted facts/sources, logic, and emotional inclination. Is there a category I missed? Some kind of green misty field that warps truth?

What dismays me about most right-wing debate is the lack of specificity. You use loose words to describe nebulous concepts; you use sweeping generalizations to juxtapose an opinion you don't like with an evil that is unquestioned.

I asked if I'm "Idiotarian" or not. Nobody seems to be answering. Are you just being nice? Or, given a moment to think about it, does the term just seem a little unclear?

Where are the tripwires? What are your issue tests to qualify/disqualify?

Generalizing can be fun. I can start by picking a few groups, like terrorists, anti-abortion militants, Bush's economic advisors, and street drug dealers. A bad lot, all around.

I think I'll call them "Purples", and then I'll wax all axiomatic about how there's a big Purple love-fest going on, with plenty of winking and solidary and people-eating for all. See how it's all part of the same conspiracy?

Which is all ridiculous, of course. And so is...the I-Word. If you can't define it.

Diversity is a beautiful thing.

And to all, a good night...