.. counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike; they’ve all come to look for America ~ Simon & Garfunkel

Have you found America?

Held ragdoll-close, a sea of fractured mirages jostle to lead on memory’s stage.

Snatching money in the wind is less bootless than pursuing mind ephemera in flickering dim persistence.

Lives flow enigmatic in zero-sum fruitless futility, weaving culture in mind’s montage.

Media detritus taunts, echoing relentlessly tinnient our frayed and cherished memories.

Collaged in colloidal silvered cellulose, ink-smeared headers, and crackly acetate audio, American annals precipitate beyond culture to caricature.

Ouroboros marketers wield art-as-corporate blenders in ceaseless rebirths of modern America, puréed to crass cliché.

Trail-blazing frontier heydays, a forgotten 19th parade of decayed decades in these e-times, fossilize sessile beside the 20th in Hollywood’s hubristic faux follies.

Did you find America in fatherland’s flame or motherland’s mystique?

A poorly tended orphan, our nation coalesced to juvenescence then fluoresced at pubescence in two tumultuous centuries. These long, pivotal, busy years occupy barely a blink, mostly a blank, in the public mind.

Débutante as Papal gift to Spain, this homeland’s less scenic circuit saw attrition of native owners, spirited witch hunts, desperate preachings, wrangles with European overlords, uncivil slavery, and can-do capitalism .. from which chaotic nonage wearily emerged The Union, bearing but a buck and a Bill of Rights.

Gilded Age founded imperialism that inexorably begat soul-sapping world wars and two apocalyptic flash-bangs. The world took careful note. Capable of equally revengeful spite, of such Hollywoodesque it was not. Post-war euphoria waned Cold War-soured till extinguished by futility in Asian-Arab crusades.

Premature news of our death was only slightly so, arriving with delicious but heart-stilling irony, in a sense by our own hand. Earth’s greatest empire slain by a home-grown virus. A virulent, highly-praised export variant. Best practice, world class, and best of breed.

Greed.

Which brings us to speed on where we stand in the smoking ruin that was America, and why we might seek what it was, and thus what we are .. or were.

"They’ve all come to look for America" (still searching, by the way) implies not just a tribal ache, but some grasp of the nationhood to which we long to belong.

No-one knows what America, or God, looks like, except those claiming to have seen Her, or Him. Yet all live equally doubtless She is His America.

“God bless America and nowhere else” resonates as classroom oath, if facetious doggerel.

That a combustion-fed tolled artery delivers pilgrims to the City of Ghosts in search of genesis is irony enough.

Irony traveled with those who, from the sea, sought a dream yet to exist, so founded a Mephistophelian metropolis before surging westward (and ho). It led their descendents to pay the piper, and the turnpike, in return inutile quest to this Trimenjous Apple, seeing in it their seeding, as does indeed the entire nation.

Who seeks America?

The addled call West Coast home, in which honey pot limbo they stickily struggle.

True believers came, saw, collected $200, then backscattered eastwards to bigger smokes.

Heartlanders be dull, but with hint of shiny and a glint in the eye know America is beyond daily drear.

Geekocracy, oblivious to the quest, tweets & buzzes;  i-gadgetry addicted eCitizens understanding only The cYbeRst4tes oF aamricc4 (and virtually nowh3r3 else).

Real people adopt tinted orphans, flaunt fashion for flashbulbs, party bare-pussy, frame epoxy teeth in botulinum lips. Smug smiles juxtapose facial twitches that grate of guilt or harbor hysteria.

Is America the land, sullied by our thoughtless greedy hand? Pre-Columbian purity pales to polluted post-apocalyptic pestilence.

Do we seek America by filling it with people and place names, pandering to progress, prostrate before prodigence? 300 million searching for … 400 million? A billion. Do we stop now or is eternal growth the plan? (There’s a plan?)

The world found America without seeking

International opinion of us wanes with global frost and thaw, seasonal or political. Knowing the beast too well it backs slowly towards the door, looking instead to lateral liaisons with Aspirant Asia, Gulf of Lucre, or Crown Prince Europe.

Oppressed and starving craved bounteous freedom in our virgin frontiers but their dreams mired in thread-bare hardship and a genocidal slave culture. And still they arrive, over sea or beneath border, to shatter hopeful longings and languish as Latino latter-day slaves of white wealth.

Marketing, ever our game, drew migrants by symbols rendered as reality. Cowboy and gold rush cloaked ruinous labor. Coca Cola and Chevrolet bestrode dark steeds of economic imperialism, dazzling distant peasants while their birthright siphoned stateside.

Disquiet and delight greeted 9-11. Ensuing crusades blinded-not a media-savvy world that pierced indulgent embedded reportage and found only nakedly hooded prisoners of humiliation.

We, the Americans who seek this elusive illusion, live amongst its trees unwitting of forest’s malignant extent or mischievous intent. We drive its cars, eat its burgers, bail out its banks, laissez its faire, build its weapons of mass misconception, and quell qualms of deep schisms in a reality slippery and thin as spring ice.

And ..

.. while the fortunate of working poor savor septuagenarian jobs  .. while middle class indebted choose which finger of several severed selling the house enables reattachment of  .. while overpaid geeks squander gizmo-lavish lives online  .. while rich and famous pantomime their good and considerable fortune in the preceding’s faces ..

.. the fervent distraction of an entire nation asserts Vidal’s United States of Amnesia in comatose acquiescence to dreamland’s Gordian fabric.

A child puzzles why hordes throng in consumptive frenzy and frenetic confusion.

"Where are they going, Dear Parents?"

"To find America, young one, where else?"

"But that way is perfidious, a circus of illusion, the devil’s torment, bubbles of falsity (of investment, he would say if older).”

The child ponders, and adds (with naïve clarity, of which only our favorite observer is capable):

“America lies within."

… our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. … our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.”

As xenophobic organizations across the United States of America polished their AK47s, a statesman-like Negro, literally an “African-American,” ascended to the nation’s top job.

As bankers and market touts paused briefly from emptying treasury coffers, then redoubled quick-time their public theft, a statesman-like Negro, literally an “African-American,” ascended to the nation’s top job.

As legions of corporate bagmen paused not in their daily pilgrimage to Capitol Hill to lubricate the wheels of politics the American way, a statesman-like Negro, literally an “African-American,” ascended to the nation’s top job.

As fattened spook agencies tapped phones and renditioned unfortunates of middle eastern appearance, a statesman-like Negro, literally an “African-American,” ascended to the nation’s top job.

As munitions makers and defense contractors burdened the people’s economy with weapons of yet greater complexity and obfuscate utility, a statesman-like Negro, literally “African-American,” ascended to the nation’s top job.

As unfettered laissez faire markets created artificial needs then merrily met consumptive demand, its selfish cankers stifling humankind’s faltering and increasingly ignoble destiny, a statesman-like Negro, literally an “African-American,” ascended to the nation’s top job.

And as oil cartels and automakers rubbed their hands in ecstasy celebrating the passing of peak oil, a statesman-like Negro, literally an “African-American,” ascended to the nation’s top job.

An African-American statesman, the hope of millions.

Or just another American President, at worst a factional stooge, at best simply human?

Bareeck Obama, th’ son of a Pappy fum Kenya an’ a white Mammy fum Kansas, was elecked th’ nashun’s 44th president Tuesday, bustin’ th’ ultimate racial barrier t’become th’ fust African South Car’linan t’claim th’ country’s highess office.

A nashun foun’ed by slave ownys an’ seared by civil war an’ junerashuns of racial strife delivahed a smashin’ elecko’al college vicko’y t’th’ 47-year-old fust-term senato’ fum Illinois, who fo’ged a broad, multiracial, multiethnic coalishun.

His vicko’y was a leap in th’ march toward equality. When Obama was born an’ raised, varmints wif his hide colo’ c’d not even vote in parts of South Car’lina, an’ menny were killed fo’ tryin’.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," Obama told mo’e than a quarter-millun celebrants gathard along Chicago’s waterfront.

It’s been a long time coming," said Obama, who strode on stage wif his wife, Michelle, an’ their two dotters, Sasha an’ Malia.

But tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America."

In winnin’ th’ White House, Obama turned th’ elecko’ate upsideways down, one in 10 of them castin’ ballots Tuesday were doin’ so fo’ th’ fust time. Though thet number was about th’ same as four years ago, most of th’ noocomers were yo’nger than 30, about a fif’h were black, an’ a fif’h were Latino. Thet was greater than their share of th’ ovahall populashun, an’ them groups voted on overwhelmin’ly fo’ Obama.

Two of th’ hardest-fought states — No’th Carolina an’ Missouri — were too close t’call, ah reckon. Fo’ most voters, th’ saggin’ economah was th’ topmost corncern — a dynamic thet played strongly t’th’ Democrat’s favo’.

Six in 10 voters said th’ economah was the  impo’tantest issue facin’ th’ nashun, acco’din’ t’exit polls — far mo’e than cited inergy, Iraq, terro’ism o’ healthcare. Obama alluded t’them wo’ries an’ others in his vicko’y speech, offerin’ a note of sobriety amid th’ celebrashun.

"The road ahead will be long," he said. "Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year, or even one term. But America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there."

McCain Takes South Carolina

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) South Carolina’s proud voters picked John-Boy McCain fo’ president on Tuesday, unnercuttin’ a groun’sfine of noo voter suppo’t fo’ Bareeck Obama in an eleckshun rightfully along racial lines.

A noo reco’d fo’ turnout sar voters acrost th’ state wait fo’ hours t’cast ballots, in th’ end bypassin’ Obama’s mantra of change in favo’ of th’ Arizona senato’’s experience an’ suppo’t fo’ th’ war in Iraq.

Th’ Nashunal Press called th’ race sho’tly af’er polls closed, based on an analysis of voter interviews, cornducked by Edison Media Research an’ Mitofsky Internashunal, ah reckon. Early votin’ had McCain wif 57 percent of th’ vote t’Obama’s 42 percent.

Besides th’ presidential eleckshun, voters also sent Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham back t’Warshin’ton fo’ a second term, dawgone it. All six corngresshunal posts, ev’ry seat in th’ state Legislature an’ three proposed amendments t’th’ state cornsteetooshun also were bein’ decided, cuss it all t’ tarnation.

McCain’s win was a vindicashun of th’ common man’s commonsense. His 2000 primary bid stalled in South Carolina an’ he ultimately lost t’Jedidiah W. Bush. But his vicko’y in a hard-fought January primary put wind behind his campaign.

Perhaps th’ only thin’ thet appeared t’bother South Carolina voters on Tuesday was his choice of Alaxa Gov. Sareeh Palin fo’ vice president. + Nearly ev’ry black voter cast a vote fo’ Obama an’ about three-quarters of all white voters opped fo’ McCain, acco’din’ t’voter interviews.

Voter registrashuns were up this hyar year, in part due t’th’ furious campaignin’ leadin’ up t’th’ presidential primaries back in January. On account o’ th’ primaries, wif th’ state cornsidered a lock fo’ th’ Republicans, Obama has not returned an’ McCain came back only once fo’ a fundraizzu.

Still, th’ Obama campaign kepp an o’ganizashun in th’ state. Officials say a reco’d 2.5 million varmints registered an’, in recent months, blacks signed up t’vote at nearly twice th’ rate of whites.

While some poll managers said th’ turnout was massive, state eleckshuns officials said thar were few serious problems at th’ polls mostly varmints unable t’find their right pollin’ places. Aroun’ th’ state, varmints waited fo’ hours, menny waitin’ in lines befo’e dawn

We spend our lives bein’ referred t’great years: th’ crash of ‘29, Pearl Harbour ‘42, th’ Boston Tea Party of 1773.

Wal, mah friends, we is retchin’ th’ end of an histo’ic year indeed, an’ one we acshully lived!

This hyar is th’ year wo’ld narrative confess’d th’ devastatin’ truth of climate change an’ peak oil, we endured th’ greatess collapse in financial histo’y, an’ a black man was elecked President of South Car’lina.

Not jest enny black man. An intelleckual, an orato’, a statesman – a an’ a Warshin’ton outsider.

Menny of mah white feller South Car’linans is whisperin’ Obama will deport us t’Guantanamo Bay, o’ wo’se, th’ Ivory Coast.

Mo’e wo’se, he will give th’ rich folks’ hard-won money back t’th’ pore fum whom they fus’t stole it.

They say th’ Presidential cavalcade will sport mo’e bling than a Harlem pimp wif rim-spinnin’ SUVs an’ 20-stone black fro’d bouncers, an’ a Secret Service full of unnercovah brothers.

An’ Paint it Black be th’ noo nashunal anthem, eff’n not th’ fate of th’ White House, which insiders cruelly suggess will soon resemble th’ Soul Plane.

So, yoo want th’ real deal on Bareek Obama, our noo Comman’er in Chief?

Click hyar t’read mah eleckshun roun’up.

Burn, baby, burn!

G’day, yes it’s Leif on one of my rare posts at this dusty lanolin-stained unfashionable z-list outpost.

I should be rapping on DigitalWildWest.com, but this greasy rag finds a more, shall I say, circumspect readership (and I use the term cautiously, since Dr. Collin says most arrive anonymized searching/seeking “silicon sex doll.”

What stirred me?

Security blogger Dancho Danchev’s irresistible high-priest disdain of the filth that soil this most marvelous of humankind’s creations, our webbly cyber world. In particular his derisive shout to some hapless malware pathetic, who he begrudgingly admires as probably raking it in, cash-wise.

And then his mention of “Cyber Jihadists.”

WTF? As in Weapons of Transient Futility, otherwise, What IS That? Global Islamic Media Front? Did I miss something when I slept through a scene in Life of Brian?

You can stick those two words adjacent and imagine that a cyber jihadist does to the www what his bomb belted brother does to your downtown market at peak hour. But I still needed more of a handle.

I have an image oracle that brings me up to speed on anything in the known (and/or Rumsfeld’s unknown) universe.

Nothing so crude as a Google image search, it generates a cyber montage paralleling real-world stirrings – much the way of noise2news.com with language. The image oracle illustrates not only this article, it seductively also does most of SheepOverboard, a mechanized eking of picturesque essence from obscurity – counterpoised, of course, by Angel Boligán’s acerbic crayon.

As gleaned from the nearest pix above, “cyber jihadist” leads to “E-Jihad” the program. And that is, you ask ..?  The full story awaits here:

JIHAD is the term used for struggle against evil. Electronic jihad or simply, E-JIHAD, is the jihad in cyberspace against all the propagandas and false allegations against the message of truth. E-JIHAD is the struggle in cyber space against all false and evil disciplines, ideology and forces of evil.

Sigh. I guess there’s just a limit to how many ways the oppressed can describe their oppression. And as much as we cyber-sophisticates might sneer at the naive confused gibberish marking your average religious crusader (on both sides – and one man’s devout is another’s infidel) if you were on the receiving end of Dubya’s ideology for the last 8 years, you’d be feeling a touch Jihadic yourself.

On a purist note, Dancho’s the man. From his wrap of cyber Jihadist hacking teams, this conclusion (is this not command of the milieu?):

The bottom line, script kiddies cyber Jihadists dominate, PSYOPS fill the gaps where there’s zero technical know-how, mentors are slowly emerging and providing interactive tutorials to reach a wider audience, localization of knowledge from English2Arabic is taking place the way propaganda is also localized from Arabic2English, and there’s also an ongoing networking going on between cyber Jihadists and Turkish hacktivists converting into such on a religious level. Case in point – MuslimWarriors.Org defacement campaigns with “anti-infidel” related messages.

I getcha.

CANBERRA – Australians celebrate the Whyee Festival in September 2004, rejoicing in the burning of their nation’s capitol and ousting of Federal politicians.

Image: Mt Stromlo’s 30-inch telescope sacrificed to preserve Canberra’s greater treasures, like shopping and restaurant districts, etc.

The Festival, named "Whyee", an Awabakal Native Australian term for fire, originates from ancient traditions of Australian Aborigines setting fire to bushland to rejuvenate vegetation.

Preceding by a month Australia’s Federal elections, which are held every 3 to 4 years, the Whyee Festival of the Burning of Canberra was redefined in modern terms during the Eureka Stockade, a symbolic and now iconic rebellion of gold miners in the 19th century.

History

In the turmoil of that uprising, a lavatory accidentally set ablaze was quickly recognized the perfect symbolism for cleansing the nation’s capitol (then Sydney) of its perennialy-rotten politicians.

Australians, mostly derived from lower-class criminal elements of English society – and with more than a rascally streak to them – decided a great time could be had at someone else’s expense by burning the buildings and belongings of their snotty masters each year- perhaps as a … yes, that’s it, a celebration!

Since no-one wanted particularly to burn down Sydney (though they did Melbourne, but it was too far away), the capitol of Australia was moved to uninhabitable, desolate, worthless wasteland in central-southern New South Wales.

The settlers, mostly lower-class English migrants and relatives of uneducated soldiers and convicts (the reader ought be reminded), thought it a right lark to name the place with the Native Australian word for meeting place, "Canberra", and force their politicians to live in the godforsaken wilderness, well and truly out of their hair.

Since establishment in 1913 with the laying of a foundation stone on Capitol Hill (which failed to burn, so the bush was set alight instead) the bizarre festival has been held in the month preceding election day ever since (preferably during hot weather).

The most recent Whyee Festival was marked for sometime September 2004, happily coinciding with the onset of spring’s hot, dry winds, and roughly a month before the October 9 elections.

Traveler and pyromaniac Janet Morton says:

The scene at Canberra is extremely cathartic and difficult to describe, but resembles a cross between a bawdy Disneyland, the Fourth of July and the end of the world!" [And that was before the festival began - Ed.]

How it works

Even today the festival has retained its satirical and working-class roots, an intent not lost on the well-to-do and faint-of-heart "Canberrians" (snigger) who, with intuitive caution befitting their politico-parasitic nature, invariably ditch out of town during Whyee.

Besides the burning of the city’s political and bureaucratic structures there are myriad other activities at the Whyee fiesta.

During the day you can check out the extensive roster of unparliamentary scraps on the charred lawns of the smoldering House of Representatives, parades of members suspended from the chambers, paella contests symbolizing exposing corruption and distribution of booty, and beauty pageants around the city comprising mistresses, whores and lobbyists of our flesh-pressing baby-kissers (their wives having been dispatched to the coast with the kids to "avoid the terrible fires").

Spontaneous fireworks displays occur everywhere in the days leading up to "Whyee", but another highlight is the daily rush for portable toilets when the Senate (forced into a circus tent beside the smoking ruins) pauses for lunch at exactly 12pm. The ground literally shakes for the next ten minutes.

In addition to razing the capitol’s political infrastructure, the focus of the fiesta is the creation and destruction of "ninnys".

The ninnys are extremely lifelike and usually depict bawdy, corrupt politicians. They are crafted by local political branches and take about six months to construct and, if elected, often cost upwards of A$750,000 per year plus expenses.

The ninnys remain in place until the day known as "La Crema" (not to be confused with a popular Internet café). Starting in the early evening, young men with axes chop holes in statues of outgoing representatives and stuff them with fireworks. The crowds start to chant, the streetlights are turned off, and all of the ninnys are set on fire at exactly the stroke of midnight.

Over the years, the local firemen, called "bomberos," (so named for an incident involving a water-tanker accidentally loaded with aviation fuel) have devised unique ways to assist torching the city’s buildings, like neatly covering storefronts with petrol-soaked tarpaulins.

And each year, one of the ninnys is spared from destruction by popular vote and exhibited in the local Museum of the Ninny at Yarralumla (Native Australian term for "echo," as in "empty" – a joke lost on its self-aggrandizing residents, but not upon locals, or the nation in general) along with the other relics from years past, who also live there when in town.

Sometimes things get a little out of hand.

The previous Whyee Festival saw bands of youths from lower-class Belconnen run amok, targeting cultural and scientific buildings normally considered sacrosanct. Sadly, the historic and world-renowned Mt. Stromlo observatory was destroyed, along with decades of research.

Locals and tourists alike were hugely relieved that only Stromlo was lost in the rampage, and not the revered and priceless cultural treasures of Cockington Green.

Australia figures low in the world’s sheep breeding (for originality) but at its peak boasted one sixth the world’s sheep population and 28% of world wool production.

The broad, parched fields of this ancient continent bore Ovine insights from generations of woolly thinkers, ruminating at length on affairs internal and international. Tyranny of distance bred expansive intellect.

This very evening (15-Mar’04) the second lead in metro news was a man’s cruelty to dogs. He was actually too kind, taking unwanted pooches, himself admitted sick to hospital, dogs unattended, the story 9 months old. The vociferous Press smeared this unfortunate, sick, old man’s character with their arrogant, sneering superiority – achieving similar results, no doubt, with toilet paper later that night. How cheap can a headline be?

Ruminating on the throne myself recently, the parallel struck me of ironic inverse similarities between two smaller-than-life stories our tabloid assassins set upon (as savage dogs on an undefended old man – though in this case, perhaps, as dogs with a bone – old, well-chewed, stinks, one buries, another digs it up…) over a period of many months, to the severe exclusion of actual news – the daily grind of repetitive headlines driving the most ardent newsophiles to Survivor, Brother or Idol for relief.

one

Boatload of unfortunate Arab refugees sprung a leak near Western Australia and the Australian Government proclaimed the soon-to-be-wet passengers threw their children overboard – despite photos showing no board to be thrown over and Navy observers, with cameras, denying this. [See photos on this ink - truthoverboard.com, a rather cranky website with NO affiliation to SheepOverboard.com, coincidentally named]

two

Boatload of equally unfortunate sheep conversely steaming to Arabia on the M.V. Corma Express. Almost as God is Just they were denied access – bugger the signed contract. [Background story - Sydney Morning Herald]

When our incisive, gallant press realised their mistake on the first item (which they chose not to before derailing a Federal election) their overreaction had the population excruciated with tears of nausea before letting the story fade.

Equally uninspiring, the Press’ chronic obsession with the second item. Despite reaching comic apogee, the beat-up on those beaten sheep went on and on and on ….

Sheep are notorious for gnawing grass to the roots, destroying their food source and despoiling their personal eco-space. Hmm, did our ink slingers’ ancestors somehow acquire this gene …?

Our eyes are the eyes through which the Earth finally beholds her own beauty" - Teilhard de Chardin

Youthful optimism believed one more lifespan (his own) sufficient to complete the work begun when modern humans gasped in awe at the beauty of their first dawn.

Well, here we are!

Despite the vast, intelligent, resilient, infinitely patient grazing herd’s signaled desire to be left alone in their noospheric quest, the planet is still servant to besuited crime lords, illiterate holy men and – worst – moral and political imbeciles, opinionated ideologues, cruel bully kids playing in the deadliest toy shop.

Lacking a cape, and the ability to fly unaided, one can only poke fun at the weak, incapable, and morally bereft – those who rule or otherwise seek to control us.

Oh yes, and on behalf of those lacking the freedom to do so.