Conrad Johnson's Blog, page 37

Vicki Hendricks and Fur People

New Books Internet Radio with John H Byk and Marta Merajver on BlogTalkRadio

Clean Kill

A concise handbook about mastering the writing and killing arts.Amazon KindleBarnes & Noble

Neo-existentialism Melody

      

One must be succinct, even when mad.--Grace Valentine
Sometimes words are not enough. That's when music becomes essential to convey perceptions. 

Manuel Garrido and Political Corruption

Distinguished attorney and Argentinian Congressman, Manuel Garrido, discusses his life's work spotlighting political corruption around the world. Live on Blog Talk Radio, Sunday, May 18 at 8pm EDT.

Is Facebook a Necessary Evil?

 Facebook is here to stay and Big Brother loves it. That is when the slimy bastards at the NSA aren't busy sexting or watching streaming porn on their government supplied computers. Of course it's not the only social media site that tracks you, prods you with products and promises of anesthetic pleasure, digitally speaking. However, in my experience, it's the most insidious because of the way they manipulate their own brand of George Orwell's, brilliantly coined term "Newspeak".
Ironic, you might be thinking, that I have a Facebook icon on this page that takes you to my own little corner of this Kafkaesque cyberspace. Well..if you see what's posted there, I'll bet you a body part that it won't be visible for very long. I've been kicked off of Zuckerberg's cloud more times than a beggar walking into a boutique on Santa Monica Boulevard. Yet I don't take it personally. That's the beautiful flaw in this entire, technologically dominated world which tries to track our every movement, regardless or not whether you have something to hide and I don't (except maybe some old love letters from ex-girlfriends that I wouldn't want a new one to see). The simple fact is that we are all just binary bytes in the Matrix. Our existence is irrelevant. And unless you've spent some time in a Surveillance State that tries to crush even your thoughts like I have, then you won't know what the hell I'm talking about or even care.
And guess what?
I don't give a rodent's ass anymore either. Sure. It pisses me off sometimes because I'm an Honorably Discharged Veteran and law abiding citizen but that doesn't mean squirt. We are all potential threats to the state, or more specifically, the state of mind that has slithered and wrapped itself around society with multidimensional fangs and claws that are poised and ready to venom zap in the name of protecting liberty and justice for all. 
But it's an old game. Humans have been prisoners longer than jailers have been guarding them and, eventually, the culling of divergent thinking will end but not without leaving a big, steaming pile of feces on the ground for somebody to clean up. Just work through it, keep fooling yourself if you need to, and use whatever technology, drugs or diversions that take you through the night into the next day of a bright and shining lie in the United Stasi of America. Pay no attention to the lives of others. That job's already taken.

Dr. Ian Miller and Athene's Prophecy

More Books Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with John H Byk and Marta Merajver on BlogTalkRadio

The Ukrainian Crisis Makes the Hard Man Humble

If you are able to understand the Crimean War, you will grasp the complexities surrounding the Great Game between Western and Eastern Europe. --H.G. Wells
Alfred, Lord Tennyson's legendary, militaristic and narrative poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade", glorified, what seemed to many, a ridiculous attempt to gain an impossible battlefield victory in a place that most British saw as not very remarkably noteworthy--not worth the blood and treasure for such a relatively small piece of real estate. His poem was jingoism at its finest--an epic moment of fruitless bravery forever preserved, much like the American film, Hamburger Hill,  directed by John Irvin. As Wikipedia says:
The film portrays fighting, combat, courage, camaraderie and dedication to the mission among troops. It also brings up painful questions about the Vietnam War, such as the stigmatizing of replacement troops ("newbies" or, more crudely, "FNGs", for "Fuckin' New Guys") and of the seeming caprice of high command in the conflict, specifically the lack of strategic value of the hill and subsequent unnecessary casualties. Other issues include the effect of anti-war sentiment on morale, and racial tensions among troops (especially the overcoming of racial tension by gradual friendship and earned respect).

This is actually not a bad summary from one of the lesser respected information sources on the Internet and can be applied quite appropriately, to a large degree, to explain what is happening in the Ukraine today. In fact, it never did stop "happening" and the current manifestations of tension and bloodshed originate back to medieval times when Muscovy became a nation state force to be reckoned with. Russians, whether they like it or not, have always been considered the blunt edge of the threatening "Asian hordes" eager to undermine the Roman Christendom empire that King Charlemagne spent his entire life building and defending. Much like Vietnam, Ukraine (and the rest of Central Europe), has always been a territory seen by power hungry statesmen as a flashpoint between competing kingdoms in the region, plagued by ethnic rivalries, foreign invasions and situated in the shadows of a mighty empire that we now call modern Russia.

Tatars, Cossacks, Ottoman Turks, Poles and other Slavic races have always found the Ukrainian plains a perfect killing ground, crowned with the jewel of the Crimean peninsula that offers Moscow access to the Black Sea via the Bosphorus Strait, an important naval gateway into the Mediterranean which no power in Western Europe really has ever wanted them to have complete control over. Hence, the explanation for the recent developments during which Russia reaffirmed its dominance over that strategic peninsula before anything else. The rest of the country can be slashed and burned in Stalin-like fashion as far as they (or anyone really) are concerned.

But people live there. And native populations are problematic when it comes to dominating a region for military and economical strategic reasons. Just ask the Hmong of Southeastern Asia. 

Ultimately, as what happened in Vietnam, the Ukraine will once again capitulate to its more powerful and closest neighbor despite fierce resistance from so called "separatists" that inhabit the country. The Vietnamese, fierce and proud for having defeated the French and the Americans, are in reality a thumb squash away from China's growing strength. But China doesn't need them as much as Russia needs the Ukraine and especially the Crimean peninsula. This is where the comparison unravels. This is where the center of the chessboard between East and West spills the most blood. This is how it has been for over a thousand years and where the final, decisive battle between those struggling for the upper hand in controlling the valuable resources of Central Asia will take place, perhaps sucking the entire planet into a vortex of insane posturing, brinksmanship and full blown war.   Because, ultimately, in order to remain human, one must finally choose sides. That's just the way the game is rigged, like it or not.

Ira Mark Egdall and Einstein Relatively Simple

Current Books Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with John H Byk and Marta Merajver on BlogTalkRadio with WRITERS ALIVE on BlogTalkRadio

Common Core Educational Reading Standards--A diametrical rhetorical analysis (according to Pink Floyd)

A Pre-9/11 Media Moment in Multimedia Brief

Now people in America know war --Antoni Byk, Polish immigrant to USA in 1939
Not too long ago for those of us who lived through it. But, and enlighten if I'm wrong, memory theory and space-time theory are not dissimilar.

Undeniable.
This disaster did happen on September 9th, 1991 on a mostly clear skied country in the USA. We saw it happen. We were there. It was there. And they were all together...post-Lennon. Like many others, I suffer national PTSD syndrome that will never go away for as long as I live now.

But besides the astonishment at our dog having stood up, black, back hair raised wire-sharp ...with tail drawn straight in a warning readiness... a light beam image of Osama bin Ladin flashed on the giant TV screen before him as he slept while we watched. We rarely talked about it. But others were there. And they are, thankfully, still in my world.  Yet Jazz Man  never reacted to TV, sight or sound, before then and never did again. Evil was in our living room. It's unspoken pledge to protect the pack until death. Holographic or not, this was as real it as got.

I know this from the trenches (with at least two decades of educational/instructional at various public and private institutions both in America and in Far Eastern countries).  I know what I'm talking about.

GO AWAY NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE OR HEAR MORE!
"What makes you think it's YOUR choice? A...hahhaha....hahaha...hahhah..."
[image of an Old Norse 'seer' from the hit TV series, The Vikings]

Us digital immigrants, who learned html rosetta mía style, get what I'm saying. We wanted to know everything we could about the technology that was chaining our world in the blink of a bat's eye. It almost cost me my marriage because I never went to bed at night, spending hours that passed like seconds with my machine.  "Welcome," it said.  Just as Pink Floyd did. This was probably one of the last chances that my generation had at taking the blue or red pill.

Common Core Educational Reading Standards that point students to false aesthetics and false divergent thinking via mastering comparison/contrast as the Golden Calf (ironically, through the use of the Machine), need upgrading. I could write a book on this stuff. But...hey! Here's a vid! [P.S. I'm Ray Bradury and I approve this message]

Pink Floyd-Welcome To The Machine- (Paris 1977)-Legendado

Common Core Educational Reading Standards--A diametrical rhetorical analysis (according to Floyd)

A Pre-9/11 Media Moment in Multimedia Brief

Now people in America know war --Antoni Byk, Polish immigrant to USA in 1939
Not too long ago for those of us who lived through it. But, and enlighten if I'm wrong, memory theory and space-time theory are not dissimilar.

Undeniable.
This disaster did happen on September 9th, 1991 on a mostly clear skied country in the USA. We saw it happen. We were there. It was there. And they were all together...post-Lennon. Like many others, I suffer national PTSD syndrome that will never go away for as long as I live now.

But besides the astonishment at our dog having stood up, black, back hair raised wire-sharp ...with tail drawn straight in a warning readiness... a light beam image of Osama bin Ladin flashed on the giant TV screen before him as he slept while we watched. We rarely talked about it. But others were there. And they are, thankfully, still in my world.  Yet Jazz Man  never reacted to TV, sight or sound, before then and never did again. Evil was in our living room. It's unspoken pledge to protect the pack until death. Holographic or not, this was as real it as got.

I know this from the trenches (with at least two decades of educational/instructional at various public and private institutions both in America and in Far Eastern countries).  I know what I'm talking about.

GO AWAY NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE OR HEAR MORE!
"What makes you think it's YOUR choice? A...hahhaha....hahaha...hahhah..."
[image of an Old Norse 'seer' from the hit TV series, The Vikings]

Us digital immigrants, who learned html rosetta mía style, get what I'm saying. We wanted to know everything we could about the technology that was chaining our world in the blink of a bat's eye. It almost cost me my marriage because I never went to bed at night, spending hours that passed like seconds with my machine.  "Welcome," it said.  Just as Pink Floyd did. This was probably one of the last chances that my generation had at taking the blue or red pill.

Common Core Educational Reading Standards that point students to false aesthetics and false divergent thinking via mastering comparison/contrast as the Golden Calf (ironically, through the use of the Machine), need upgrading. I could write a book on this stuff. But...hey! Here's a vid! [P.S. I'm Ray Bradury and I approve this message]

Pink Floyd-Welcome To The Machine- (Paris 1977)-Legendado