The Dialectical Playa

Laying the smackdown on politics, art, and culture with a strong pimp hand...

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  • Drop that asparagus, Whitey, and walk away…

    Drop that asparagus, Whitey, and walk away…

    Malcolm X points the way to the "oppressive food system" for copy writers with an axe to grind.

    Drop that asparagus, Whitey, and walk away...
  • Lions, tigers, and bears, oh Maya!

    Lions, tigers, and bears, oh Maya!

    Just who are the Maya? And did they really predict that December 2012 is The Big One? The Dialectical Playa investigates.

    Lions, tigers, and bears, oh Maya!
  • Clowns…

    Clowns…

    Smugness becomes you: Ann Coulter goes all in for the GOP establishment.

    Clowns...
  • Serenity now…

    Serenity now…

    Are your employees hurling themselves from the rooftops of your assembly buildings? Does it seem like it's raining employees at your manufacturing center? Then hurry to a local Apple Store and pick-up the iNett.

    Serenity now...
  • I surrender…

    I surrender…

    Mark Steyn raises a glass in celebration as he turns another blogger to the Dark Side.

    I surrender...
  • Cipher…

    Cipher…

    Yes it is! R.I.P. little dude!

    Cipher...
  • From the archives!

    From the archives!

    Burrowing deep into the archives, the playa once again manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

    From the archives!
  • Giving thanks…

    Giving thanks…

    The Dialectical Playa is thankful for puppies, gravy, lesbian pulp fiction, and lots of stuffing.

    Giving thanks...
  • Stormtooper, interrupted…

    Stormtooper, interrupted…

    Re-imagining Stormtroopers. A brilliantly conceived theme for a photo gallery by Kristina Alexanderson.

    Stormtooper, interrupted...

Featured Articles

Drop that asparagus, Whitey, and walk away…

By the dialectical playa on February 6, 2012

Raising a fist for animal, vegetable, and mineral equality.

From Five Feet of Fury comes this gem, proving that to liberals EVERYTHING is political. Not content with their choke-hold on journalism, academia, law, government, the institutions of pop-culture, and the GOP, liberals are now mobilizing to assault the sole remaining bastion of good-ole-boy, patriarchal homophobia, racism, sexism, Islamophobia, intolerance, and hate that is “the oppressive food system.”

Yes, you read that right, they’re looking for a “freelance copywriter who can write like Malcolm X speaks.” I guess they’re looking for something like this:

If I have a cup of coffee that is too strong for me because it is too black, I weaken it by pouring cream into it. I integrate it with cream. If I keep pouring enough cream in the coffee, pretty soon the entire flavor of the coffee is changed; the very nature of the coffee is changed. If enough cream is poured in, eventually you don’t even know that I had coffee in this cup. This is what happened with the March on Washington. The whites didn’t integrate it; they infiltrated it. Whites joined it; they engulfed it; they became so much a part of it, it lost its original flavor. It ceased to be a black march; it ceased to be militant; it ceased to be angry; it ceased to be impatient. In fact, it ceased to be a march.

Admittedly the use of this type of hyperbole can be quite effective and – more importantly – inflammatory when, for example, a writer argues that a cook has “engulfed” his/her french onion soup with so many onions that it ceased to be a soup. Though I’m not sure if randomly interjecting “Fuck Whitey!” throughout the copy is necessarily either “groundbreaking” or makes the dish being reviewed any more “sexy and delicious.”

“Writing like Malcolm X speaks” really shines, however, when equating the act of cooking with capitalism and imperialism, since a chef is in essence oppressing and exploiting all the ingredients used in a particular dish for personal financial gain. When Malcolm X said:

We’re not Americans, we’re Africans who happen to be in America. We were kidnapped and brought here against our will from Africa. We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock – that rock landed on us.

the copy writer who can create “powerful, snappy, copy that incites” and who isn’t “afraid to be controversial, polarizing and poetic” could make a similar allusion to the “kidnapped” ducks whose legs and livers were used against their will in the platters of duck confit and foie gras found in five-star restaurants throughout the country.

So since crème brûlée and tiramisu are both too bourgeois and “White” for the leftist intelligentsia and require a copywriter to provide a suitably multiculturalist, post-modern, literary re-interpretation for guilt-free consumption, that leaves more for me. 

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Posted in Commentary | Tagged black pudding radicals, edible activism, Jacobins against truffles, Malcolm X: Gourmond, the unbearable lightheadedness of liberalism, you're kidding me | Leave a response

Lions, tigers, and bears, oh Maya!

By the dialectical playa on February 5, 2012

The Mayan Calendar. Where it all begins, er, ends.

Since the end of the world is less than eleven months away, I thought I’d offer you, dear readers, a little background on the Maya, especially since it’s their calendar that says we’re all doomed. The Maya were a Mesoamerican civilization that enjoyed mass human sacrifice, genital mutilation, a planned economy, totalitarianism, a corrupt ruling class, a virulently intolerant political pseudo-religion, and sloped foreheads. Actually they differ very little from modern liberals. Despite the fact that their ruling class was enabled and encouraged by a very sympathetic entertainment-media complex and controlled almost every aspect of Mayan culture (from the legal professions, journalism, and academia to music, satellite television, and the internet), their society nonetheless collapsed due to a lack of green jobs and an ineptly run anti-obesity campaign that had its genesis in a crusade against trans-fats but ended up banning all their food.

Oh well. At least they left us their calendar! Modern New Agers and liberals looking for something – anything – to believe in after being so bitterly disappointed by yet another Messianic Socialist who seduced them with stupid slogans find the Mayan calendar’s immutable guarantee of cosmic doom to be refreshing. Especially after enduring four anxious – and ultimately disappointing – years of waiting for Gitmo to close and for the government to redistribute every dime of the “1%’s” cash. However recent archaeological discoveries have caused Mayan experts to re-consider their original theories regarding what the Mayan calendar’s abrupt denouement was really alluding to.

Early in 2011, in the jungles of southern Mexico, a stucco mural revealing an exclusive Barbara Walters’s interview with the great Mayan king Pakal was discovered among the ruins of the majestic city of Palenque. In it, Pakal made numerous references to the “Pakal Rule,” which would raise taxes on the rich, thereby lowering Palenque’s $1.6 trillion budget deficit by .000000000000235121%. Pakal said this was necessary since he paid less in taxes than his secretary. He then made a cryptic reference to Mormons, Saul Alinsky, “The Bain Way,” and borrowing cash from the Chinese Politburo. Following a fawning question from Walters on how his wife’s organic garden was progressing, Pakal stated that despite running Mayan civilization into the ground with confiscatory taxation, PakalCare, and an activist Environmental Protection Agency, it still wasn’t as bad as what would happen to people 1400 years later. The program then cut to a commercial.

Following a mural for a buy-one-get-one-free deal on Maize Nuggets at the ubiquitous fast-food chain McMaya’s, the Pakal interview continued. Unfortunately this section of the stucco was heavily damaged by hackers from WikiLeaks, but researchers believe they were still able to piece together a somewhat coherent narrative in which Pakal, acting as an emissary of the corn god Archer-Daniels-Midland, revealed that – instead of an apocalypse or a “paradigm shift” in universal consciousness – the Mayan calendar predicted that on 21 December 2011, a demonic Ego with big ears would defeat both a robot and a flabby, pasty man with a shock of white hair (whom Pakal alternately referred to as “Camelot” and “Silver Queen”). Following this victory, the Ego would initiate a period of unbridled barbarism by classifying everyone as “the 1%” and sell them as an IPO through Morgan Stanley to Middle Eastern investors. Or something like that. Unfortunately, like deciphering the quatrains of Nostradamus, interpreting Mayan prophecies can prove equally capricious. Recently Mayan researchers have cast a pall of doubt over the accuracy of this scenario as, due to the mural’s damage, they admit it’s unclear whether it was the robot or the Ego who emerged victorious from their clash; however despite this uncertainty, they hastened to add, the ending remained the same.

The Maya

Click here to visit an interactive map of Mayan sites on National Geographic.

One of the delectable secrets of Mayan civilization is that they invented Mayannaise! Bwahahahahaha! Anyway, follow these links to learn more about the Maya.

  • Mayan Civilization
  • The Rise and Fall of the Maya
  • The Mayan Calendar Explained
  • Nova – The Mayan Language (Part 1 of 6 – Follow the youTube links to Parts 2-6)

The Maya

[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_1.jpg]A late bloomer in the Maya world, the city of Uxmal in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula continued to flourish in all its splendor after the fall of Tikal, Palenque, and the other great cities to the south in the ninth century. A ruin with ornate roof combs known as the House of the Doves showcases the Puuc architectural style, named for the hills of the northern Yucatán Peninsula.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_2.jpg]The death mask of Pakal, the great lord of Palenque, immortalizes the vigor of his youth with 340 pieces of jade, four pieces of shell, and two pieces of obsidian, most likely arranged on a wooden backing that has since rotted away. Inscriptions record that Pakal spent eight years of his seven-decade reign preparing his lavish burial. When he died, on August 28, A.D. 683, he was laid to rest laden with jade—this mask, a large pendant, earplugs, rings, necklaces, and bracelets—beneath a temple where he would be venerated for generations to come.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_3.jpg]An incense burner’s ornate lid takes the shape of a warrior outfitted in Teotihuacan style, with a butterfly nosepiece and a helmet shaped like a bird—most probably an eagle. Many such objects have come to light near the modern town of Escuintla in southern Guatemala, where Teotihuacanos appear to have settled among the Maya.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_4.jpg]Objects such as this jade vessel crowned by the likeness of a king—Jasaw Chan Kawiil II of Tikal—testify to the Maya’s artistic skills and their far-flung commerce. Luxuries for the elite—including jade, the pelts of exotic animals, and brilliant feathers—were traded throughout the region and into central Mexico.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_5.jpg]Sitting on a stool of bones, an aged god holds a human head in his hands. This spooky ceramic incense burner comes from the early fifth- century tomb of Tikal’s King Yax Nuun Ayiin—son of Spear-thrower Owl, the man who masterminded Teotihuacan’s incursion into Maya territory. When the burner was filled with smoldering incense, smoke issuing from the god’s mouth enveloped the head. The figure may represent a creator god breathing life into a human head.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_6.jpg]The ruins of Tikal, rising from the rain forest of northern Guatemala, still display the grandeur that once awed multitudes. Among the largest of the early city-states, Tikal was likely the first target of a conquering army from central Mexico, which arrived on January 16, A.D. 378. During the next five centuries, it became a superpower with alliances—and enemies—throughout the Maya realm.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_7.jpg]With Polaris as a hub, stars streak through the night in a time exposure of the House of the Magician at Uxmal. Sophisticated sky watchers, the Maya tracked the movements of the stars and planets closely and created an accurate solar-year calendar based on their observations. The heavens also had metaphysical significance for the Maya. They believed the Milky Way was the path to Xibalba, the underworld, and they scheduled momentous events such as battles and sacrifices around the journeys of Venus and perhaps Jupiter.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_8.jpg]Kabáh, in the Yucatán, shares the same ornate architectural style seen at Uxmal, to which it is connected by a sacbe, or stone causeway. Its most famous monument, the Palace of the Masks, displays 260 images of Chac, the long-nosed rain god. Repeated on many buildings in this arid site, this motif was likely meant to summon rain. The snouts could have held offerings of copal, the sacred incense.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_9.jpg]A pyramid called La Iglesia (The Church) soars into the canopy of the rain forest at Cobá, in the Yucatán. Only a fraction of this little-known site’s 30 square miles (78 square kilometers) has been cleared of the tangled cover that overtook all Maya cities, and few visitors arrived until the promise of tourism brought a road in the 1970s. Now day-trippers from resorts on Mexico’s Caribbean coast climb the crumbling ruins, once reserved for priests and kings with godlike powers.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_10.jpg]Played in every city, large or small, the Maya ball game required heavy padding for competitors who hit a heavy rubber ball around a large court using just their upper arms and thighs. Often played with two teams of two or three members, the game was sometimes seen as representing the movements of the sun, the moon, and the planet Venus. It was also a metaphor for a mythical contest involving the maize god and characters known as the Hero Twins. At its most desperate, it became a ritual replaying of war, and matches ended with the beheading of the losers.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-maya/thumbs/thumbs_11.jpg]In a terrifying expression of royal power, a stucco mural at Toniná shows a turtle-footed skeleton grabbing the hair of a severed head— with portrait-like features, perhaps of a real person—and a mythical rodent holding another head in a ritual bundle. These characters were the wayob, the affliction-spewing alter egos of kings that were used to curse enemies. They work here amid a scaffold bearing the heads of human sacrifices.

Note: All images property of National Geographic and their respective photographers. Click here to see more amazing images of this once flourishing civilization.

 

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Posted in Commentary | Tagged chronology, cosmic denouement, Humor, Mesoamerican history, the politics of personal destruction, up against it - part IV, you say Maya; I say Mayo | Leave a response

Stormtooper, interrupted…

By the dialectical playa on February 3, 2012

A side of occupation usually hidden by the Imperial Authorities: Frolicking Stormtroopers.

This delightful collection of toy Stormtrooper still life photos by Kristina Alexanderson is simply brilliant! For more genius, visit her filckr photostream here.

Stormtroopers by Kristina Alexanderson

[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/thumbs/thumbs_6756282821_ab1dba0e81_b.jpg]D - as in Darth
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/thumbs/thumbs_6767054073_1468cf9181_b.jpg]Towards new beginnings...
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/thumbs/thumbs_6776489207_9c7dedcf47_b.jpg]Shy just shy...
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/thumbs/thumbs_6791503875_3658b58a56_b.jpg]Out on town
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/stormtroopers-by-kalexanderson/thumbs/thumbs_6802941381_0a8972d2a2_b.jpg]You and me - Together

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Posted in Art | Tagged Art, Photography, still life | Leave a response

Clowns…

By the dialectical playa on February 3, 2012

The GOP Establishment.

The GOP’s talking heads, giddy in the afterglow of Romney’s Florida victory, are now debating just what, in fact, that win means. Rejecting their jubilant assertions to the contrary, Romney’s inevitable GOP nomination simply means ObamaCare is here to stay. Even if Romney wins the election, a proposition I find dubious at best, it’s unlikely that a Big Government Republican – whose signature gubernatorial policy “achievement” served as the model for President Obama’s signature domestic policy “achievement” – will ever consider repealing the monstrosity that is ObamaCare.

The GOP establishment knows RomneyCare is a problem, so they are now trundling out their own legion of useful idiots to convince the hoi polloi that universal health care was the casus belli for American independence and that evil King George III was against the individual mandate. Hence the interminable attempts by Jennifer Rubin, Karl Rove, and a host of other GOP luminaries to both pick-up Romney’s fallen standard during times of defeat and advance it in times of victory. However the oddest and most unlikely of Romney’s crusaders has been conservative pundit Ann Coulter, who has decided to lend her prodigious mane and short skirts to Romney’s campaign. Yesterday, Coulter offered a bizarre, ill-reasoned, almost Obama-esque defense of RomneyCare, claiming that it IS in fact “conservative” to assault individual sovereignty.

No one is claiming that the Constitution gives each person an unalienable right not to buy insurance.

States have been forcing people to do things from the beginning of the republic: drilling for the militia, taking blood tests before marriage, paying for public schools, registering property titles and waiting in line for six hours at the Department of Motor Vehicles in order to drive.

There’s no obvious constitutional difference between a state forcing militia-age males to equip themselves with guns and a state forcing adults in today’s world to equip themselves with health insurance.

The hyperventilating over government-mandated health insurance confuses a legal argument with a policy objection.

So using her argument, it’s also fine for the state to force its citizens to perform abortions, force children to euthanize their parents, and force non-Muslims to convert to Islam. Just as Obama’s domestic policies are a logical progression from George W. Bush’s, so too is ObamaCare a logical progression from RomneyCare and any pundit who will argue that RomneyCare and ObamaCare are anything but statist solutions to statist-caused problems will eventually drift to becoming statists themselves.

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Posted in Commentary | Tagged androgen, GOP establishment, hirsutism, legally blonde, mittbot, what an Ivy League education will get you | Leave a response

Serenity now…

By the dialectical playa on February 2, 2012

Rest assured that Apple is moving heaven and earth to improve the inhuman and inhumane working conditions at its Chinese assembly plants. They want you to know that they value their labor units as much as they value you, their customers. Introducing the iNett. Because they care:

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Posted in Commentary | Tagged iHater, parody, sarcasm, take that Jobs, What's a few Chinese? They've got a billion more. | Leave a response

I surrender…

By the dialectical playa on February 1, 2012

Mark Steyn wins.

Willie Nelson sang:

In the twilight glow I see her,
Blue eyes crying in the rain.
When we kissed goodbye and parted,
I knew we’d never meet again.

Love is like a dying ember,
And only memories remain.
And through the ages I’ll remember,
Blue eyes crying in the rain.

Someday when we meet up yonder,
We’ll stroll hand in hand again.
In the land that knows no parting,
Blue eyes crying in the rain.

It’s not a flight of fancy to imagine America as the “Blue Eyes” crying in Willie Nelson’s rain, especially after we left her for “compassionate conservatism” and “Hope and Change.” Look, for the past two years I fought the good fight against pessimism, cynicism, and nihilism – or at least what passes as a close approximation to them – and I can now admit it was a heavy cross to bear. But in the end, broken by reality, I gave up being a goody-two-shoes Jedi apprentice and embraced the Dark Side. Darth Steyn will now complete my training. Why did it take me so long so see the error of my ways? Ironically, I blame my own beloved conservatism for my dogmatic slumber.

An unfortunate quality of classical liberalism’s Enlightenment heritage is its belief in the innate goodness of Man. That Man will, with all things being equal, always use reason to meticulously plot a rational course to a logical and satisfactory end. Of course thousands of years of human history belie that utopian belief, but at least it sounded sophisticated, anthropocentric, and sufficiently nuanced. But like progressivism, the Enlightenment was all a fantasy of Change We Can Believe In, a chimera of folly, a phantasma of good intentions. Though a cynic by nature, I admit that on occasion this Siren of Utopian Impossibility and Community Organizing has proven too alluring to resist and has subsequently lead me into the heresy of pretending that Man is something he is not. But the cold, hard backhand of reality and disappointment always returns me to my native misanthropy.

Like The Enlightenment, America also began as a noble experiment designed to promote individual liberty, responsibility, and the Rights of Man. The expectation that the nation would forever be led by great men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln was probably unrealistic, and in conformance to the reality of our lower standards the Republic’s latter days have seen a menagerie of milquetoasts like Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama parade through the White House. While we can blame the establishment for giving us such mediocre candidates – including Micheal Dukakis, John McCain, Bob Dole, Al Gore, and John Kerry – to chose from, the fact of the matter is we deserve these losers. Why? Because a nation that was once comprised of rugged individualists, that produced the men who fought a brutal civil war to preserve the Union – thereby ensuring freedom for all its citizens – and who in a national collective effort would later defeat the combined forces of Japanese militarism and Nazi barbarism has devolved into hipsters, hoes, and thugs, yo. So what was it that finally broke me? It was an accumulation of failure, actually. An electorate so willing to suspend reason in order to elect Barack Obama President is the same electorate that gleefully wallows in contemporary pop culture.

So in honor of Mark Steyn, I admit that we’re screwed. And for proof, you don’t need to look at unemployment figures or cratering home values, no my friends, just watch a music video.

*******

The Collapse of Western Civilization, in HD

From time to time, I enjoy visiting Alternative Right in order to observe white intellectuals compete with black ones over which race is the most victimized and aggrieved. Fortunately it’s not all intellectual hijinks over there as they are performing yoeman’s work by documenting the end of civilization. From Alternative Right’s So This Is How It Ends (STIHIE) Series, enjoy a comparison between The Onion’s contemporary pop music parody featuring K’ronikka and current American pop sensation Nicki Minaj.

  • K'ronikka
  • Nicki Minaj
  • Just a Gigolo
K'ronikka

From the Onion’s youTube feed:

Pop Star’s Single, ‘Booty Wave,’ Most Likely Civilization’s Downfall

Multi-millionaire pop sensation, K’ronikka, appears on Today Now! completely unaware that she is responsible for the deterioration of civilized society.

You need to install or upgrade Flash Player to view this content, install or upgrade by clicking here.

Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj – Stupid Hoe (Explicit)

You need to install or upgrade Flash Player to view this content, install or upgrade by clicking here.

‘Stupid Hoe’ is supposed to be a parody that attempts to satirize Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Lil Kim. Shakira is also targeted, which puzzles me since, unlike the others, she’s not a “stupid hoe.” Personally, I think Minaj’s animosity towards Shakira stems more from petty jealousy than anything else as Minaj obviously resents her own lack of pelvic mobility and, yes, veracity; after all, everyone knows Shakira’s hips don’t lie. Anyway, the problem with this entire parody theory is that it relies solely on the video for supporting evidence as the lyrics are completely unintelligible and, for all we know, could simply be ebonics for chocolaty breakfast cereals (“If you sexy eat my cocoa raw.”) or commodities trading (“We ship platinum, them bitches are shipping wood.”). Compounding the problem is that the video itself is as cryptic and stupid as the lyrics. Apparently one doesn’t need to be cogent when creating pop songs. I’m also in agreement with Alt Right’s Richard Spencer who mused that though it’s an actual parody, ‘Booty Wave’ possesses more “redeemable qualities–and is far closer to something one might call ‘music’–than the creations it is meant to lampoon.”

(Ugh, yo, yo)

I get it crackin’ like a bad back
Bitch talkin’ she the queen when she lookin’ like a lab rat,
I’m Angelina, You Jennifer,
Come on, bitch. You see where Brad at

Ice my wrists-is, then I piss on bitches,
You can suck my diznik, if you take this jizz-is,
You don’t like them disses, give my ass some kisses
Yeah they know what this is, givin this the business

Cause I pull up and I’m stuntin’ but I ain’t a stuntman
Yes I’m rockin’ Jordans but I ain’t a jumpman
B!tches play the back cause they know I’m the front man
Put me on the dollar cause Im who they trusting
Ayo SV, whats the fucks good?
We ship platinum, them bitches are shipping wood
‘Em not beheadin hoes, but my kitchen good I wish,

I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish a bitch woooooooooooooooooould.

You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe [x3]
You a stupid hoe, (yeah) you a, you a stupid hoe
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (stupid, stupid)
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (you stupid, stupid)
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (stupid, stupid) (stupid, stupid)

Look Bubbles, go back to your habitat,
MJ gone and I aint having that,
How you gon’ be the stunt double to the nigga monkey,
Top of that I’m in the Phantom looking hella chunky.

Ice my wrist-is, then I piss on bitches,
You can suck my diznik, if you take this jizz-is,
You don’t like them disses, give my ass some kisses
Yeah they know what this is, givin’ this the business

Cause I pull up in that Porsche-a, but I ain’t a Rossi
Pretty bitches only can get in my posse
Yes, my name is Roman, last name is Zolanski
But no relation to Roman Polanski

Hey yo, baby bop, f-ck you and your EP,
Who’s gassin’ this hoe? BP?
Hmm, thinks, 1,2,3, do the Nicki Minaj blink,
Cause these hoes so busted,

Hoes is so crusty, these b!tches is my sons,
And I don’t want custody.
Hoes so busted,
Hoes is so crusty, these b!tches is my sons, And I d’ont want custody.

You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe [x3]
You a stupid hoe, (yeah) you a, you a stupid hoe
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (stupid, stupid)
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (stupid, stupid)
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (stupid, stupid) (stupid, stupid)

If you cute then your crew can roll,
If you sexy eat my cocoa raw,
Put ya cape on, you a super hoe,
2012, I’m at the superbowl.

Stupid hoes is my enemy,
Stupid hoes is so wack,
Stupid hoes should’ve befriended me,
Then she coulda probably came back. [x2]

You’re a stupid hoe,
You’re a stupid hoe,
You’re a stuuupid hoe,
And I ain’t hit that note, but f-ck you, stupid hoe, f-ck you, stupid hoe
I said f-ck a stupid a stupid hoe [x4]

(I am the female Weezy)

Just a Gigolo
To help Nicki Minaj, in case she decides to ‘parody’ Britney Spears or Mary J. Blige in the future, I’ve decided to include David Lee Roth’s seminal Just a Gigolo video as it is the standard by which all other music video parodies are judged. The key – as demonstrated by Diamond Dave – is to make the subject of your parody, well, obvious. I hope that helps, Nicki.

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Posted in Commentary | Tagged cultural apocalypse, Götterdämmerung, pop culture misandry, the collapse of western civilization, winning | Leave a response

A Playa Moment…

By the dialectical playa on February 1, 2012

To wash the palette of the previous post’s gloomy and depressive after taste, enjoy this apéritif to quick reflexes and cricket’s Ricky Ponting. Mrow!

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Bainful…

By the dialectical playa on January 31, 2012

Of course he’s the most electable.

Everybody’s got their own metaphor for 21st Century America and they usually relate to some kind of man-made disaster: The Titanic, The Costa Concordia, The Lusitania, Eric Holder, etc., etc. One could even make the argument that while America represents in the macrocosm the blundering, pathetic state of collective denial and ennui that has historically afflicted civilizations in terminal decline, this collapse is also fittingly represented in the microcosm by the GOP. And, as I opened this post with a metaphor for the inevitability of America’s self-inflicted apocalypse, I can likewise make a similar metaphoric association between the Republican Party and its own self-inflicted disaster: Mitt Romney. But instead of hitting an iceberg or getting torpedoed, the GOP is about to get Bain Capitalized.

Ah yes, Bain Capital. That noted symbol of capitalism and free markets. The MittBots at Romney Campaign Headquarters – or using its more recognizable nom de guerre, National Review – now assure us that it is quite commendable Romney personally made hundreds of millions of dollars by destroying “failed” companies and liquidating jobs as Bain Capital’s CEO since “the road to job creation runs through job destruction.” They then emphasize the point by offering up a smug comparison between passé legacy corporations such as GM and Kodak with hip, profitable companies like Facebook and Instagram. All the while calling people who disagree with their myopic, Wall Street-defined capitalism as “anti-capitalist.” That’s your cue, Reihan Salam!:

Every presidential candidate has to defend himself against accusations of wrongdoing — an affair, abuse of office, campaign-finance impropriety, and so forth. Mitt Romney finds himself in a predictable defensive crouch, too, but the allegation against him is extraordinary: He stands accused of doing his job too well.

As the founder and CEO of the private-equity firm Bain Capital, Romney was a turnaround artist. In that role, the GOP frontrunner says, he restored failing firms to health, usually with great success. He claims to have helped create thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars in new wealth.

Some of Romney’s Republican rivals, particularly Newt Gingrich, haven’t framed Romney’s record in such generous terms. They say Romney was a “vulture capitalist” who used financial chicanery to enrich himself and his cronies at the expense of helpless workers. President Obama and his allies will surely make the same case in the months to come. Indeed, a recent memo from Stephanie Cutter, the president’s deputy campaign manager, accuses Romney of having sought “profit at any cost,” and of believing in “an economy where the wealthy and powerful can rig the game at the expense of working Americans.” Romney’s verbal gaffes, including an ill-considered soundbite professing his love of “being able to fire people,” have made him vulnerable to more demonization still.

After his victory in New Hampshire’s primary, Romney fought back with unusually strong words. “President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial,” he said, adding that “we have seen some desperate Republicans join forces with him.” But Romney was only partly right. The plaintiffs against free enterprise are not just a handful of politicians, but a growing number of American voters who think corporate elites have jeopardized a social contract that once guaranteed, as Bill Clinton put it, that “if you work hard and play by the rules, you ought to have a decent life and a chance for your children to have a better one.”

There is some reason to believe that in the 21st century, that contract has expired. Over the last decade, job destruction has outpaced job creation in the private sector. Great American brands like GM and Chrysler went on life support, and others like Kodak died altogether. Today’s corporate success stories, meanwhile, are nimble, brainy start-ups rather than the glorious industrial giants of yesteryear. Consider Instagram, a cellphone-photo-sharing service with 10 million users and, as of late last year, six employees. Even a Silicon Valley behemoth like Facebook, currently valued at over $82 billion, has just 3,000 employees. Kodak had 19,000.

Companies like Instagram and Facebook will hire more — but they probably won’t hire those veterans of Kodak or GM, and they won’t flock to Rochester, N.Y., or Detroit, Mich., to chase after the Next Big Thing. We can blame economic abstractions, such as globalization or skill-biased technical change, for this upheaval of the American economy. Or we can blame those who have profited most conspicuously — the highest-earning 1 percent, and the man who now serves as their political stand-in: Mitt Romney

Eliminating American jobs, accelerating American de-industrialization, basing the American economy on over-valued social networking companies, and advocating for more offshoring and outsourcing is what passes for “conservative economic thought” in 2011. I’ll ignore the basis of Salam’s economic argument and merely state the obvious as it applies to Mitt Romney and his quest for the Presidency: A man who defined his career by destroying jobs is not going to be able to create them. For proof, just look at Barack Obama since, by National Review’s own criterion, as America’s most successful jobs destroyer he should stand as America’s most effective jobs creator. But with total unemployment and underemployment around 18%, the reality just doesn’t jive with the theory. So Mitt’s acolytes can babble “2002 Winter Olympics” all they want, but the fact is “turning around the Olympics” isn’t a résumé enhancer. Romney’s own progressive record as Governor of Massachusetts mitigates anything he may have achieved as a cash-stuffed suit on Wall Street and getting the ski lifts running for a Giant Slalom in Salt Lake City.

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Posted in Commentary | Tagged Obamney, serenity now, show me the difference, up against it - part III, we're doomed | Leave a response

Happy New Year…

By the dialectical playa on January 15, 2012

Whatever.

Happy New Year. I rang in 2012 by working, though I don’t know why. I mean, what’s the point? The fact that our sovereign debt is now equal to our economy has so unimpressed the Wizards of Smart that they are demanding a further increase in the debt limit with no obvious intent of ever paying their creditors back. Just try negotiating those terms with your credit card company. What’s worse is that my tax dollars are merely encouraging Leviathan to become an ever more bloated carcass of sclerosis and oppression, stifling everything from economic recovery to personal initiative, common sense, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Sure I should derive a perverse sense of satisfaction – more like the euphoria derived from surviving a massive zombie invasion really – from being one of the rapidly dwindling 88% of “gainfully” “employed” “Americans” in the Obamaconomy. But any feelings of relief and satisfaction are tempered by the realization that we’ve got Obama for another five years (i.e. one more of Barry and four of Mitt). While the Era of Obama is hardly worthy of the moniker “Era,” at least it’s been one of those historical moments that future generations will recognize as being – similar to the benighted reign of the Roman Emperor Elagabalus – indicative of the fall, and not decline, of an entire civilization. A government so debauched and out-of-touch that it willingly provides weapons to Mexican drug cartels while harassing law-abiding citizens over their Second Amendment rights deserves to be unloved and disrespected. Thus the only positive for 2012 is that the tempest of idiocy swirling about the nation’s capital is scheduled to expire, along with the rest of the world, in a Mayan-predicted apocalypse conveniently scheduled for December. If there’s a silver lining to dying grotesquely in a Götterdämmerung before Christmas, it’s that at least the nation won’t suffer the ignominy of swearing-in either its first Mormon President or, more depressingly, re-swearing-in its first moron one in January. If the best the establishment can give us is a choice between a white Obama and a black Romney, then we collectively deserve the cataclysm induced by our rendezvous with Planet X. Oh how I yearn for the sweet release from the dysfunction and stupidity of statism.

Melodrama and Armageddon aside, at least in the interim we can enjoy the spectacle of Ann Coulter shilling for the least conservative candidate in the GOP field. Just be prepared to wretch violently as Coulter’s unmelodious voice warbles dissonantly through the ether as you listen to her mendaciously defend Romney from the depredations of Peter Robinson on the latest Ricochet podcast. According to Coulter – and apparently to the entire cabal of smug GOP “intellectuals” – RomneyCare, which possesses a striking similarity to ObamaCare, is more than acceptable if it’s imposed at the state level. However, once it becomes “federalized” it’s of the devil and must be consigned to hell along with any cuts to the defense budget; people who don’t want a panorama of tacky, plaster Ten Commandments mounted in every school and courthouse across the fruited plain; and critics of Wall Street “capitalism.” Plus when the best thing you can say about your candidate is “he’s the most electable,” in a way you’re just saying “Hope for the best but plan for the worst, suckers.” It’s not that we’re at the point where we can “manage decline,” it’s that we’re at the point where decline is unmanageable. Yet our ruling class remains blissfully unaware of this. What does it say about the present when in a nation of fat-asses, Hostess – the maker of Twinkies – declares bankruptcy? It’s that the days of artificial flavors and preservatives are over because no one has the money to pay for it anymore. An economy based on consumption instead of production, a government kept solvent by borrowing and confiscatory taxation rather than through responsible budgeting, and a ruling class motivated solely by personal greed and power is a recipe for bankrupt Ding Dongs. Welcome to America. That damn asteroid can’t get here fast enough.

The Apocalypse: Contemporary Interpretations

[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_100822-nuked_-d-c.jpg]A post-apocalyptic Washington D.C.
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_51-armageddon-evacuation.jpg]The genesis of Armageddon: Nuclear War
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_apocalypse-1.jpg]Earth impacting with Planet X
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_apocalypse-moscow.jpg]A post-apocalyptic Moscow
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_apocalypse-signs.jpg]The surrealness of the apocalypse
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_apocalypse.jpg]The vehicle of destruction: Planet X
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_destruction_by_huiyen.jpg]Images of post-apocalyptic destruction
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_dr-strangelove-1.jpg]Riding the Bomb in Dr. Strangelove
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_nuclear1.jpg]A 1971 file photo of a nuclear bomb detonated at the Mururoa atoll, French Polynesia. (AP Photo)
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_post-apocalypse-london.jpg]A post-apocalyptic London
[img src=http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/flagallery/the-apocalypse-contemporary-interpretations/thumbs/thumbs_ss_boomer_movies_dr-strangelove.jpg]The progenitor of Armageddon: Dr. Strangelove

 

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Posted in Commentary | Tagged 2012 Presidential Campaign, clinical depression, hater, misanthropy, musings, Obama, Romney, up against the wall - Part 2, we're doomed | Leave a response

Idiot Savant…

By the dialectical playa on December 20, 2011

The smartest man in the room.

There are many reasons why liberals should never be placed in positions of power: Eric Holder being one. And Joe Biden being another. Yet while university psychology departments could spend decades studying the enigma that is our Attorney General, Joe Biden makes for a more accessible topic of analysis. Admittedly we have Biden’s own idiocy to thank for that. From the semaphore that is his facial expressions and hand gestures to his frequently uttered banalities and malapropisms, Joe Biden is the master of the unintended spectacle.

And for his latest performance, leave it to Joe to expose the “logic” behind the Obama administration’s Afghanistan “policy” by admitting that we’re in it to lose it.

The White House on Monday defended Vice President Joe Biden for saying that the Taliban isn’t an enemy of the United States despite the years spent fighting the militant Islamic group that gave a home to Al Qaeda and its leader Usama bin Laden while he plotted the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

“It’s only regrettable when taken out of context,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said of the vice president’s remarks in an interview published Monday.

“It is a simple fact that we went into Afghanistan because of the attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. We are there now to ultimately defeat Al Qaeda, to stabilize Afghanistan and stabilize it in part so that Al Qaeda or other terrorists who have as their aim attacks on the United States cannot establish a foothold again in that country,” Carney continued.

That the Taliban IS Al Qaeda is inconsequential. And since our political leaders don’t know what it is we’re fighting against (i.e. Islam), much less what it is we’re fighting for (i.e. insert your own “stopping the proliferation of WMDs;” “stopping terrorism;” “forcefully spreading democracy, liberty, pornography, abortion, etc.” justification here), it therefore becomes as easy to create a strawman – like the administration has done with “Al Qaeda” – as it is to cynically define what is “victory.” The insipid post-modernism that has created the yawning abyss between what liberals imagine reality to be as opposed to what reality actually is can also be blamed for creating not only a dangerously naive foreign policy, but a completely fanciful one.

The left and its neo-con allies on the right have spent $1 trillion dollars, thousands of American lives, and over nine years to transform Iraq and Afghanistan into Iranian and Pakistani client states respectively. Never, aside from the Manhattan Project and the Saturn Program, has any endeavor undertaken by the often reliably feckless and incompetent federal government ever been so “successful” (other than Holder’s “Fast and Furious” fiasco). From Pakistan to Morocco, the Obama Administration has successfully overseen the Arab Spring’s transformation into an Islamist Winter. Such a legacy of failure is nothing new for liberals, of course, since Carter and Clinton were known for their victorious forays into the arena of foreign policy disaster (Carter’s timid response to Communist aggression and Clinton’s misguided support of the Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs are just two examples). But since we achieved such sterling “successes” as Egypt, Libya, and Morocco with no loss of blood and treasure, we could have reasonably achieved such ends in Iraq and Afghanistan without invasion and occupation. In fact, now that we’re admitting that Afghanistan is going to be ruled by the Taliban by 2014 at the latest, the entire invasion was pointless anyway. Much like Joe Biden and the President he represents.

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Posted in Commentary | Tagged Biden, dhimmicrats, foreign policy fail, hater, hitting the wall, libtards, Obama | Leave a response

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Video Musings…

Address Is Approximate by The Theory. While this is a charming short story about a toy who escapes the office that serves as his prison via the only means available to him (i.e. Google Maps Street View and a toy car), the existential yearning for freedom that this video expresses isn't just limited to toys. This is a plea for someone to rescue me from this blog.

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The Dialectical Playa on posterous

Eventually, I'll migrate to a different theme, but in the meantime as I get used to posterous' dashboard, the admittedly muted green - brownish/green really - theme nevertheless reflects my focus on money and absinthe like no other. So pull out your slotted spoons and drizzle some water over a sugar cube (or two) as you raise your glasses to my greatness! Booyah, suckas.

Follow me on tumblr!

The Dialectical Playa on tumblr

I wouldn't wish the Wordpress iPhone app on Nancy Pelosi. That's how much I hate it. So instead I've decided to use tumblr to post pictures, video, and links via the fantastic tumblr app while I'm at work slaving for The Man. I'm using a basic retro theme that appeals to my Mad Men aesthetics, but eventually I'll migrate to something that more accurately reflects my sophistication and inner beauty.

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BCS Game of the Week!

The Allstate Sugar Bowl

VS



It's the Ohio State Buckeyes verses the Arkansas Razorbacks in this latest installment of the venerable Sugar Bowl. Arkansas is favored and justifiably so. They beat four still-ranked teams while OSU beat two (Miami and Iowa) who both fell out of the top 25 by the season's end. While each game is its own season - just ask Nebraska who got ambushed by Washington last night 19-7 - I still believe the quality of opponents played during the season is a good indicator of the type of team one is at the end of the year. For the Buckeyes, their one marquee game against an outstanding Wisconsin team resulted in a 31-18 pounding in Madison. As I've said previously:

Ohio State has been impressive against poor competition while failing spectacularly against better teams (Wisconsin crushed them 31-18). Ohio State reflects the placid nature of their coach, Jim Tressel, and while they can run up the score against Eastern Michigan (73-20), they lack the offensive schemes, game plan, and aggressiveness to effectively beat better coached teams with comparable talent

OSU is 0-9 verses SEC teams with their most recent exercises in futility coming in the National Championship losses to Florida and LSU. It's true that OSU matches up well against Arkansas, but combine the tattoo-gate distraction with the typical unpreparedness we've come to expect from the Buckeyes in BCS games, and the result will be the same. So save your Buckeye Battle Cry and Hang on Sloopy for next year as I'm calling it for Arkansas.

______________________________

Fearless Playa Prediction:

Arkansas 35

Ohio State 17

______________________________

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[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Window-in-Cairo-e1282985898678.jpg" alt=""]National Geographic: Window in Cairo by Reza - Arms folded in rest, women look over Cairo as they chat.
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/russian-orthodox-priest_6333_990x742-e1282985613701.jpg" alt=""]National Geographic: Russian Orthodox Priest by Gerd Ludwig - Father Sevastyan meditates on the Gospels at Svyato-Kazansky hermitage, one of many Russian Orthodox communities resurrecting across the land.
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/traveling-circus-massachusett_3587_990x742-e1282985369970.jpg" alt=""]National Geographic: Family Traveling Circus by Traer Scott - Parents watch their daughter's performance at a traveling family circus in Massachusetts.
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/women-digging-rajasthan_12003_990x742-e1282984726541.jpg" alt=""]National Geographic: Rajasthani Women Digging in India by Steve McCurry - During the dry season herding activity slackens, and the Rabari people alter their routines. In Rajasthan, women turn to grueling wage labor, earning two dollars a day for digging a reservoir.
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/monks-chanting_13135_990x742-e1282984284649.jpg" alt=""]National Geographic: Eastern Orthodox Christian Monks by Travis Dove - On the holy peninsula of Mount Athos, monks chant "Christos anesti—Christ is risen" during a midnight vigil. This Easter gathering ends seven weeks of solemn fasting. Monks rise to pray during the quietest hours of the night because that is when they believe the heart is most open.
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/western-mongolian-man_12253_990x742-e1282983068239.jpg" alt=""]National Geographic: Mongolian Man by Charles Meacham - A man in western Mongolia wears a fur-trimmed hat as protection from the bitter cold of winter. Sprawled across mountains and plateaus, Mongolia has an average elevation of 5,180 feet (1,580 meters).
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/sept10wallpaper-20_1600-e1282981733305.jpg" alt=""]National Geographic: King Tut by Kenneth Garrett - A coffin of solid gold weighing almost 250 pounds held the king's mummified remains.
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/ww-pla-winner-wallpaper_1600-e1282981149399.jpg" alt=""]National Geographic: Licancabur Volcano by Hugo Machado - Licancabur Volcano is located on the border between Chile and Bolivia.
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/ww-pla-hm-wallpaper_1600-e1282981133845.jpg" alt=""]National geographic: Abandoned Train Station by Nicola Cocco - Driven by his great passion for landscaping, the photographer went out to the countryside as soon as he saw it was snowing. Driving around the region of Veneto, he found this abandoned train station at Feltre and was fascinated by its melancholic feel.
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/patriarch-kirill-2010-1-7-11-13-3-e1273316919197.jpg" alt=""]Patriarch Kirill at an Orthodox liturgy.
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/klaviatur_1280_2-e1273301964742.jpg" alt=""]Steinway Grand Piano
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Annex-Olivier-Laurence-Hamlet_02-e1272478254560.jpg" alt=""]Laurence Olivier as Hamlet
Laurence Olivier won the Lead Actor Oscar® for playing the title role in "Hamlet" and in doing so was the first actor to direct himself to an acting Oscar. The 1948 film was nominated for seven Academy Awards® and won four Oscars®, including Best Picture. Restored by Nick & jane for Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans Website: http:www.doctormacro.com. Enjoy!
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/typeCN0047-e1271650933554.jpg" alt=""]Keys on an old Corona typewriter
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/hitting-the-beach.jpg" alt=""]American troops hitting the beach during Operation Overlord, June 6, 1944
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Greek_Orthodox_Church_Dome_and_Cross_21-e1268936847364.jpg" alt=""]Hope
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/hm_211-e1261347125396.jpg" alt=""]hm_21
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/The-Svetitskhoveli-Cathedral-by-fatboyke-and-flickr1.jpg" alt=""]The Svetitskhoveli Cathedral by fatboyke and flickr
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Chethams-Library-by-flufzilla22-flickr.jpg" alt=""]Chetham's Library by flufzilla22 - flickr
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[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Florence-by-CGoulao.jpg" alt=""]Florence by CGoulao
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Orthodox-Church-shrouded-by-mist-in-Pristina-Kosovo-Photo-by-decafinata.jpg" alt=""]Orthodox Church shrouded by mist in Pristina, Kosovo - Photo by decafinata/Flickr
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ali-liston.jpg" alt=""]Ali vs Liston
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Thermae_boxer_Massimo_Inv1055.jpg" alt=""]The Thermae Boxer. Bronze, Greek artwork of the Hellenistic era, 3rd-2nd centuries BC
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/2092864327_88899fcd94_o.jpg" alt=""]The Baptistry of San Giovanni and Giotto's Campanile in Florence, Italy. Photo by Bianca.
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Stone.jpg" alt=""]Stone
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/82f3358e-21a5-421c-b396-6d1602cc676f.jpg" alt=""]Poulnabrone Black and White
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/universum.jpg" alt=""]The Universe
[img src="http://www.thedialecticalplaya.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/u139066acme-9539.jpg" alt=""]The unemployed lining up at a soup kitchen during the Great Depression
16 Nov 1930, Chicago, Illinois, USA --- Notorious gangster Al Capone attempts to help unemployed men with his soup kitchen "Big Al's Kitchen for the Needy." The kitchen provides three meals a day consisting of soup with meat, bread, coffee, and doughnuts, feeding about 3500 people daily at a cost of $300 per day. --- Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS
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Currently Reading:

For some reason I forgot about literature. I'm not sure when I forgot it, but like spare change on a dresser or an item inadvertently left off a shopping list, I did. But literature never forgot about me. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol I (I picked up Vol II last week) was my reintroduction to great English literature and a free audio book sample of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms was my reintroduction to great American literature.

We two were talking while the others argued. I had wanted to go to Abruzzi. I had gone to no place where the roads were frozen and hard as iron, where it was clear cold and dry and the snow was dry and powdery and hare-tracks in the snow and the peasants took off their hats and called you Lord and there was good hunting. I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when you knew that that was all there was, and the strange excitement of waking and not knowing who it was with you, and the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring.

That is my favorite quote from a litany of favorite quotes from the book. I can see a lot of myself in the main character, Lt. Henry. But I suppose that's the point of a great story: you can put yourself in it and imagine yourself as having all the virtues and none of the vices of a hero, and of being great even when you really aren't. But a great work can inspire you into striving to live up to that standard you imagine for yourself and that society should expect from you. But that's all a topic for another day. We live in a contemporary culture that considers Dan Brown a literary titan and his wretched The Lost Symbol a tome of worth and importance, it's nice to actually discover writing and a writer that lives up to the acclaim.

More than anyone, Mark Steyn is the man responsible for raising awareness in the West of Europe's impending, but not inevitable, collapse. He assigned blame for the Old Continent's precipitous decline on Social Democracy in general and the infantilization of Europeans through the Nanny State in particular. The self-absorbed carpe diem mentality exhibited by its citizens since the 1960s has resulted in societal collapse, demographic decline, and unsustainable levels of taxation, spending, and debt contrived solely to fund the welfare state. Aware of the future economic catastrophe that would be caused by the lack of children who were ostensibly supposed to one day pay for the gilded lifestyles of their grandparents, European governments imported millions of Muslims to be the children Europeans couldn't be bothered to have. Unfortunately for Europe's ruling class, their unprecedented experiment in social engineering coincided with the revival of "Political Islam". As the number of Muslims immigrating to Europe grew larger, so did their condescension and disdain for their hosts until they viewed their arrival less as a benefit for Europe's legions of retirees and more as an invasion against their traditional enemy: Christendom. The irony is that Europe had effectively ceased to be Christian by the end of the 19th century. Steyn wrote America Alone with a clear eye and sharp wit for the ramifications of demographic decline and Islamic immigration for an exhausted Europe. Christopher Caldwell's book, however, is simply exhausting in its relentless, and convincing, pessimism. Where Steyn viewed Europe as salvageable provided it regains its confidence and faith, Caldwell says it's over and politely asks the last Europeans leaving Europe to turn off the lights as the continent devolves into a new Dark Age. This is a must read for anyone who wants to learn what the real consequences of multiculturalism are for a civilization.

Iwas admittedly getting burned out on politics. How some people can find the nuances of daily poll numbers to be either significant or interesting is beyond me. This doesn't mean I was losing my political ardor, far from it. But even the most stouthearted gets tired of the daily failures and incompetence of the American business and political class over the last twenty years. Several weeks ago, while scouring for images, I stumbled across Curse of the Drinking Class and it quickly became one of my favorite sites. What numerous bloggers have done for politics, they are doing for literature: stripping away the esoterica and pretension thereby making it accessible for everyone. Reinvigorating my long forgotten love for literature, they suggested that I ease back into it with this magisterial book: The Norton Anthology of English Literature. It's a mammoth two-volume set (I have Volume 1 and will be purchasing Volume 2 next month), but - like I tell those lucky women who experience my "dialectical playa" for the first time - don't be intimidated by the size. The format and selections are fantastic (earning it two Playa thumbs way up) and I personally recommend it as the starting point for anyone desiring to read great literature.

Currently Watching:

Obviously I haven't seen that many movies this year, but that's because most of them sucked. I hope to see True Grit soon, but I'm playing that by ear as the ass clowns I work for stumble through their year-end work scheduling. So as part of my New Year's Playa Rockin' Eve celebration, I'm going to party like it's 1999, get my drunk on with a bottle of tequila, and then go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'll have a more comprehensive review after tomorrow. Suffice it to say, Toy Story 3 is the pinnacle of movie series finales and I suspect I'll be more relieved than saddened that Deathly Hallows represents the end of this 10-year series that began with hammy child acting and culminated in teen angst.

Sites I Like

  • Alternative Right
  • American Thinker
  • Ancient Faith Radio
  • Arts & Letters Daily
  • Atlas Shrugs
  • Designers Go To Heaven
  • Doctor Zero
  • Dueling Barstools
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Foreign Policy
  • Fullness of the Faith
  • Hot Air
  • Hudson New York
  • Instapundit
  • Instapunk
  • Introduction to Old English
  • Inveterate Scars
  • Iowahawk
  • Jihad Watch
  • Journey to Orthodoxy
  • Lileks.com
  • Litopia
  • Mark Steyn
  • McSweeney's
  • Medieval art, manuscripts, architecture, life from long ago
  • Medieval Wall
  • MEMRI
  • Michelle Malkin
  • Middle East Forum
  • Morbid Anatomy
  • National Review
  • Old English Pages
  • Open Culture
  • Orthodoxy Today
  • Pajamas Media
  • Part-time Musings of a Full-time Historian
  • Ravishing Beasts
  • Real Clear Politics
  • Ricochet
  • Stuck in Customs
  • Sweetness & Light
  • Taki's Magazine
  • The American Spectator
  • The Berkeley Medieval & Classical Library
  • The Curse of the Drinking Class
  • The Girl with the Twisted Lip
  • The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast
  • The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
  • The Hoover Institution
  • The Hudson Institute
  • The Hyacinth Girl
  • The Labyrinth
  • The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
  • The Utopian
  • Townhall

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WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

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