Recommended Reading

My pal Richard Weber has a new book out. I told him that since I fear Amazon more than the NSA I wouldn’t expose my friends’ e-mail addresses to its evil web, but I would blog a plug for his book to my quarter-dozens of readers here. So listen up to a few words from Richard.

Ola! Salut! Greetings!

Here’s the amazon url to my latest novel – IN FLAMES:

http://www.amazon.com/Flames-Richard-Hilary-Weber-ebook/dp/B00MKZ9B6M/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413636888&sr=1-1

From Random House Alibi.

You can now pre-order for yourselves & gift pre-order for as many people as you wish – 100’s & 100’s, I trust. You only have to supply e-mail addresses, and on Feb 3, 2015, each will receive a notice from amazon with a code allowing them to download IN FLAMES (as your gift) to whatever device they have, including computers, (where needed, also a free amazon app enabling this).

And all this for the new low, low, specially discounted price of $4.34 per gift – including for yourselves – if you pre-order now! Shipping free to anywhere in the world! Forget giftwrapping, it’s electronic magic! Such a deal.

Also, pre-ordering now helps me considerably, so muchas gracias, mille fois merci à tous.

Go well.

pax,
richard

Final (Maybe) Words

Dear Exasperated Readers,
We may finally be done with conspiracy talk. My leading correspondent on this issue expressed willingness to continue the discussion only with the proviso that, as regards JFK, I “agree there is no question but that there was a conspiracy.” I declined and said it might be best if we moved on.

He agreed it would be best to move on and then did not move on but delivered his opinion that the reason people (such as myself) did not see the truth was because they were “confused by the mass media” and found this “truth… too disturbing to (their) identities.”

I agreed that people held to their beliefs because their sense of self were often dependant upon them. Lord knows, I said, our discussions have, if nothing else, demonstrated that.

Baby, What I Say

My friend Robert, an artist and art critic, recently contributed to the on-line Berkeley Historical Plaque Project a salute to an anonymous artist whose medium was the tar used to repair cracks on the Nimitz Trail Robert compared his (or her) “expressionistic grace” to that of a caligrapher and caled attention to the “exploding strokes, errant gestures and… hints of figure.” When I complimented Robert on his droll skewering or art critics and their prose, as well as his ability to write with his tongue implanted so firmly in his cheek, he replied that he might have been droll, but that his praise was sincere.

Oops! After wiping the egg from my face, I noted that Duchamp’s Theorem: “Art is what an artist says it is, now had Kehlmann’s Corollary: “Art criticism is what an art critice says it is” as well.

Corresponding With the Comspiratorially Doctrinaire

But the qustion I have for you, Bob, he said, is if JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm were all victims of national security state conspiracies, would you want to know?

Sure. 9-11 too, I said. If they weren’t would you?

It has been more than 24 hours. I assume he is still thinkiing it over.

How History is Made (ii)

Monday, about 1:00 pm, awaiting a doctor’s appointment, I picked up a two-hour old e-mail from a friend who said two Israeli newspapers were reporting an explosion in an Iranian nuclear facility, but no one else was. I checked on line and, by now, USA Today and The Daily Mail had the story but no one else.

When I got home, I checked Fox and CNN, but the former was featuring Joe Biden’s apology and the latter was focused on Ferguson, MO. The Washington Post now had something on line, but it seemed more like a blog than news. At 4 pm, my mideast-focused brother-in-law called from Massachusetts. He had already watched the evening news and the story was new to him.

Tuesday, the NY Times had the story on p. 8. It took the Iranians word for it that it had been an ordinary explosion of munitions. An earlier report had said windows had been shattered nine miles around but the Times said this had occurred in only two villages. The Times said it had happened the day before; my friend had said Yom Kippur; and another report had it Sept. 27.
The following morning the SF Chronicle had nothing — but it did report on a bear cub that had been killed in New York.

Things were quiet for a couple days. Some reports were even “removed.” But today they have picked up and now six buildings have been reported damaged or destroyed.

But I’ve been thinking that, once the reports appeared, they became “facts.” Once they did not appear everywhere, they became suppressed. Once they were removed a cover-up became more apparent.

Now I await hearing what has been proved. Israel did it. America did it. Only a rogue element in America (or Israel) did it in order to establiszh the Iranian nuclear program to justify a further bombing. The Iranians did it so they could blame Israel or America and justify or encourage attacks on them.

I mentioned all this to my most conspiracy-inclined friends. They have ignored me.

Which means i must be onto something.

Advanced Political Theory

There is a name for what you do, the Doctor of English and American Literature said. Autocritography, in which the critic accepts that his analysis depends upon his individual and social conditions.

And did not Heissenberg postulate that what one observes is effected by the act of one’s observing?

There Goes Another Relationship

I asked the senior political analyst (e-mail division) if there had been a war within the past century of which he approved.
He replied, Have you ever served in a military?
Though I was quite sure he knew the answer, I replied. No.
He replied, Quite.
I replied, How long would I have needed to have served in a miltary to have received and answe to my question?
He did not reply.
I replied, How long have the authors of the articles which you forward to me served in the military?
He did not reply again.
You know how I can be.

The Author Writes a Story By Lydia Davis

It is a simple and obvious thing, she said, that I refused to recognize. In fact, it is so simple and obvious that a 12-year-old could recognize it. In fact, she named the 12-year-old, who happened to be her daughter by her third husband. The Emperor’s New Clothes, she said, about this recognition by this daughter of this simple and obvious truth, requiring only one explanation by her to her daughter, and not recognized by me, despite her many explanations.
In fact, it is so simple and obvious that she will not discuss this with me further. To discuss this further would imply that it is not simple and obvious and any support this implication would offer such thinking would to make one into a tool of the perpetrators of the deed which her discovered simple and obvious truth has revealed.

Addenda

I forgot to mention that the most interesting thing I learned at my visit to Dr. Fleur (See Blog of Sept. 24) was that one of my medications, Digoxin, had been invented 600 years ago by a witch.

It seems that people with edema (swelling) would go to witches for relief, and one witch had discovered that fox glove made you pee, so she would brew up pots of tea from the leaves and some of her patients would die from drinking it, but some got better. We came to understand that fox glove contained digitalis, which is, among other things, is a diuretic, so you just have to make sure you get the dosage right.

What makes this fact particularly fascinating to me is that for several weeks I have been engrossed in the works of Graham (“Ghastly”) Ingels (See Blog Aug. 30), who is best known for being the artist behind The Old Witch.

Witches? The Old Witch? Coincidence? I don’t think so.

More strings are being pulled than we are aware of (See Blog of Sept. 25).

Internet Commerce

When I began this site, the idea was to sell some books. Preferably mine. Well that hasn’t happened but my announcement of my launch led two cartoonists I had met along my way to tell me of their latest work. I bought a copy from one and received a freebie from another. Then I wrote this:
http://www.tcj.com/two-reviews/