In case you have been out of the country, off the planet or hiding under a rock, you may have noticed a new “reality” show hitting all those HDTV’s hanging on walls all around the country. I happen to be in Mexico and by reason of the miracle invention of satellite TV, devised no doubt as a by product of many billions of taxpayer dollars used for the Research and Development to send men and women into space and to the moon, find it impossible to avoid such top quality programming.
I am imagining all those engineers working late hours for decades in the 1950’s and 60’s designing and planning the complex systems necessary to launch human beings into space and on to the moon, and find it hard to get past the obvious fact that all this marvelous technology has made it difficult if not impossible to avoid “Hot Girls in Scary Places” on my TV. Here in Mexico we are so lucky to have it in English with Spanish subtitles.
Don’t let me get ahead of myself; I want to be clear here. This article is not a review of the show “Hot Girls in Scary Places”. I have never actually seen the show, only the fact that it exists. This article could be construed as advertising for this show because we all know that there is no such thing as bad news in the entertainment industry, but again, that is not my intent either.
To be honest, when I first heard the title for the show, I laughed with wild abandon. I thought to myself “Now I have seen it all”. But then I realized there has to be a billion spinoffs on this franchise and I want to get in on the easy pickings, after all who is not going to watch a show where hot girls are in scary places! What a brain storm someone had coming up with this one. Doesn’t every man, women and child want to know what happens when hot girls are put in scary places? Such a social leap forward as this one simply cannot be ignored.
Some of my spin off ideas for follow up TV shows began to seep from the deepest reaches of my adolescent subconscious that had been locked shut for the last 40 years, and so today I give you:
: “Hot Girls Running From Scary Things and One of Them Trips and Falls”. What suspense, which one is going to fall this week?
Or how about this spin off: “Hot Girls Bending Over to Pick Up Loose Change”. Consider the multitude of camera angles that could come into play on this one!
My personal favorite would be: “Hot Girls Talking On Their Cell Phones, Putting on Makeup, and Eating Breakfast While Driving on the Freeway”. This project could evolve into an Olympic event if the ratings soar as I suspect they will just by reason of the crashes and fatalities factor. Of course this show could be followed immediately by “Hot Girls in Car Accidents Planning their Plastic Surgery”
But here again I digress and again I did not write this article for gain or notoriety. I wrote it to write something that would have as little or no effect on the evolution of our species as possible. I had originally named this article “A Step Back in Time and Intelligence” but then I thought, who would look twice at an article with a title like that, if I am setting out to write an article that has no redeeming value I want people to read it! Just like those who produced “Hot Girls in Scary Places”.
About Me
- Don Celestino
- "Through listening, nurturing and reflection, I catalyze the world, and people, to manifest their highest vision."
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Cousin Vinnie Goes to Washington
Cousin Vinnie Goes to Washington
During the 8-year stretch of the Bush administration, backroom politicking went on steroids with the poster children (Cheney/Rumsfeld) of such tactics on display at various prisons around the world as American interrogations turned to the dark side of torture.
Outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent also ramped up the political tit for tat game of sore winner and loser. Relations with big business under the Bush regime couldn’t have been better. Deregulating energy gave rise (and fall) to Enron, and a whole new meaning for “cooking the books” of large corporations (Worldcom comes to mind) was presented by non other than the accounting firms responsible to keep those very same books clean. As it turns out the accounting firms (Arthur Anderson) wanted in on the investment action making millions with insider information.
On January 20th, 2009 a new administration came to Washington to clean up the mess of the previous 8-years. Forming a strong and seasoned team of cabinet members, Secretaries of this and that, and many others, a congenial Barack Obama began his work as Chief Executive. Much has been said about the first 100 days and whether it has been a success so far, but out on the fringes from the central events in the political 3 ring circus, disturbing news dribbles out.
The first piece of news was the firing of General Motors CEO Rick Waggoner by Barack Obama. It seemed a little unusual at the time, but I gave a pass to the action with the rationalization that CEO’s, not just bankers, have some ass whoppin’s comin’ and with Mr. Waggoner’s’ firing some justice had been done.
Recently news has come out that in the restructuring of Chrysler Motors there has been some very heavy handed back room warfare. The protagonist; government car czar Mr. Rattner, and on the receiving end Perella Weinberg an officer of a non-TARP fund holding Senior debt obligations belonging to Chrysler. What makes this so appalling comes to light with the following except of the action from a blog site I follow:
“Then you have White & Case attorney Tom Lauria, describing the experience of one of his clients, holders of Senior debt in Chrysler, to Frank Beckmann:
Lauria: One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House, and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That's how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence.”
What finally resolved in this instance with Chrysler is holders of Senior Debt for Chrysler (who are first in line to collect in the event of bankruptcy) were told they were moved to the back of the line. While this is a clear violation of business law, it is the government that makes these laws and is changing them at will.
If that isn’t enough how about Ken Lewis CEO of Bank of America describing under oath to NY District Attorney Andrew Cuomo his interactions with Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke: “Mr. Lewis told prosecutors that then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke instructed him to keep silent about deepening financial difficulties at Merrill Lynch.”
In fact what Paulson and Bernanke told Lewis was that they (the government) would replace the entire board of B of A if the acquisition of Merrill Lynch was not completed by Lewis.
In the parley of gangsta rap cousin Vinnie is the strong-arm you call on when someone needs some “convincing”. I am not naïve enough to think there are only pleasantries between politicians in Washington or anywhere for that matter. After the Nixon tapes many of us were educated by the tone and use of foul language in the oval office. Even the goon squads (ie Nixon’s Plumbers) that were formed during those years were outsourced thugs. These days it seems we have removed the middleman and have appointed the thugs unabashedly to our most prestigious government posts.
I recall the welling of pride in my chest when watching the Frank Capra movie “Mr Smith Goes to Washington”. Witnessing Jimmy Stewart as Mr. Smith, following his integrity at all costs and fighting the beasts in the dark corridors of government, framed for me the hope of what this country could be, should be. Today, I am quite sure that should Mr. Smith show up in Washington, cousin Vinnie (or Bernanke or Rattner) might see that he had a little accident in the Potomac.
The halls of American government are littered with lobbyists (lobbyists for the banking sector alone number 5 for every member of congress) whose intentions are to write legislation favorable for their industry. These lobbyists write very large checks for such favors.
What we are now witnessing is the cleansing of corruption by reason of this financial meltdown. Rest assured there is plenty more to come before some terra firma is underfoot. Attempts to keep the prevailing structure of business as usual will not hold it together but will add to the general pain and suffering. So remember, when cousin Vinnie comes a knockin’ whether it be your door or the one’s in Washington, if you let him in, there is a price to pay that relates to more than money, cause cousin Vinnie, even though he doesn’t know it (he ain’t too smart, never was) steals your soul.
During the 8-year stretch of the Bush administration, backroom politicking went on steroids with the poster children (Cheney/Rumsfeld) of such tactics on display at various prisons around the world as American interrogations turned to the dark side of torture.
Outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent also ramped up the political tit for tat game of sore winner and loser. Relations with big business under the Bush regime couldn’t have been better. Deregulating energy gave rise (and fall) to Enron, and a whole new meaning for “cooking the books” of large corporations (Worldcom comes to mind) was presented by non other than the accounting firms responsible to keep those very same books clean. As it turns out the accounting firms (Arthur Anderson) wanted in on the investment action making millions with insider information.
On January 20th, 2009 a new administration came to Washington to clean up the mess of the previous 8-years. Forming a strong and seasoned team of cabinet members, Secretaries of this and that, and many others, a congenial Barack Obama began his work as Chief Executive. Much has been said about the first 100 days and whether it has been a success so far, but out on the fringes from the central events in the political 3 ring circus, disturbing news dribbles out.
The first piece of news was the firing of General Motors CEO Rick Waggoner by Barack Obama. It seemed a little unusual at the time, but I gave a pass to the action with the rationalization that CEO’s, not just bankers, have some ass whoppin’s comin’ and with Mr. Waggoner’s’ firing some justice had been done.
Recently news has come out that in the restructuring of Chrysler Motors there has been some very heavy handed back room warfare. The protagonist; government car czar Mr. Rattner, and on the receiving end Perella Weinberg an officer of a non-TARP fund holding Senior debt obligations belonging to Chrysler. What makes this so appalling comes to light with the following except of the action from a blog site I follow:
“Then you have White & Case attorney Tom Lauria, describing the experience of one of his clients, holders of Senior debt in Chrysler, to Frank Beckmann:
Lauria: One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House, and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That's how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence.”
What finally resolved in this instance with Chrysler is holders of Senior Debt for Chrysler (who are first in line to collect in the event of bankruptcy) were told they were moved to the back of the line. While this is a clear violation of business law, it is the government that makes these laws and is changing them at will.
If that isn’t enough how about Ken Lewis CEO of Bank of America describing under oath to NY District Attorney Andrew Cuomo his interactions with Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke: “Mr. Lewis told prosecutors that then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke instructed him to keep silent about deepening financial difficulties at Merrill Lynch.”
In fact what Paulson and Bernanke told Lewis was that they (the government) would replace the entire board of B of A if the acquisition of Merrill Lynch was not completed by Lewis.
In the parley of gangsta rap cousin Vinnie is the strong-arm you call on when someone needs some “convincing”. I am not naïve enough to think there are only pleasantries between politicians in Washington or anywhere for that matter. After the Nixon tapes many of us were educated by the tone and use of foul language in the oval office. Even the goon squads (ie Nixon’s Plumbers) that were formed during those years were outsourced thugs. These days it seems we have removed the middleman and have appointed the thugs unabashedly to our most prestigious government posts.
I recall the welling of pride in my chest when watching the Frank Capra movie “Mr Smith Goes to Washington”. Witnessing Jimmy Stewart as Mr. Smith, following his integrity at all costs and fighting the beasts in the dark corridors of government, framed for me the hope of what this country could be, should be. Today, I am quite sure that should Mr. Smith show up in Washington, cousin Vinnie (or Bernanke or Rattner) might see that he had a little accident in the Potomac.
The halls of American government are littered with lobbyists (lobbyists for the banking sector alone number 5 for every member of congress) whose intentions are to write legislation favorable for their industry. These lobbyists write very large checks for such favors.
What we are now witnessing is the cleansing of corruption by reason of this financial meltdown. Rest assured there is plenty more to come before some terra firma is underfoot. Attempts to keep the prevailing structure of business as usual will not hold it together but will add to the general pain and suffering. So remember, when cousin Vinnie comes a knockin’ whether it be your door or the one’s in Washington, if you let him in, there is a price to pay that relates to more than money, cause cousin Vinnie, even though he doesn’t know it (he ain’t too smart, never was) steals your soul.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Step Right Up Getcha Swine Flu Here!
Imagine for a minute that 7 miles from your town there is a farm. It is a very large farm covering several thousand acres. On this farm, every year almost 1 million pigs come to live their short lives and then are sent off to supermarkets all over the country.
A pig by weight is the equivalent or more of a human being. Now imagine a million humans living on several thousand acres of land 7 miles from your town. Looking at this comparison strictly in terms of waste, the pigs would actually leave less waste than humans considering the things humans consume and throw away. In any case the bodily waste of such a concentrated collection of humans or pigs is colossal. How do we know this? We know it because there is such a farm located 7 miles from Veracruz in Mexico. It is an American owned hog farm.
Residents who live by this farm 7 miles away complain of intense infestations, even clouds of flies. The well water in the region has been decimated by the runoff of fecal matter and the evaporation ponds on this facility give off odor on an order of magnitude that renders nausea to those who dare inhale.
In considering a facility like this, (and there are others around the world), where massive concentrations of livestock are grown, it appears the impact on the farm land as well as the human habitat for miles around is profound. At ground zero on one of these farms (I use the term “farm” loosely here, it is more like a factory), the probability of disease is exponentially increased. With mountains of animal waste, flies and who knows what else, humans have manifested giant Petri dishes all around the globe.
The first case of “Swine Flu” was detected in this town. Of course governments from both countries deny that such factories could manifest anything like a pandemic but I wonder ………….
The Black Plague of the 1300’s affected the world population as well as the social behavior of the world culture during that time after losing almost 40% of the collective population. It is widely believed this plague was carried by fleas on rats. While it is common to put the blame on the fleas or the rats or both, the human health conditions being the cause is sometimes overlooked. Cities were breeding grounds for the rats carrying the fleas. Europe particularly had been experiencing overpopulation in the cities and immediately before the plague years had experienced food shortages due to climate changes. Does any of this sound familiar or is it just me. In the 1300’s it wasn’t called Swine Flu because in a sense the human cities had become the breeding ground. It was called the Black Death, and there were many who believed the disease and death was caused by the Jews who had made their way to European cities and had poisoned the well water (here we go again with the conspiracy theories). The contemporary medicine men of the times never did figure out what the Black Death was all about. One day people just stopped dying.
I looked up Swine in the dictionary. Stay with me, humor me here: (A) Swine; a vicious, contemptible or disgusting person. (B): any of a family of omnivorous artiodactylous mammals with a coat and elongated flexible snout. If you were naming a flu like the one we now have and you understand that it is a combination of human, bird and pig swill, I thinking (using our definition of Swine) that A+B+B (bird swill)= F (the viperous flu). We have our conspiracy theories for the swine flu outbreak but I can pretty much guarantee that without the vital ingredient of A in any capacity you would not have F in any capacity. If I had to choose A,B or F, I think B is sounding kind of warm and fuzzy as the definition I wanna join. Unfortunately I have more than 2 or 4 toes (artiodactyls), but it’s nothing a little cosmetic surgery won’t cure, hell I even have an elongated snout!
The links below take you to source articles for this blog. http://www.truthout.org/043009S
www.narconews.com/Issue57/article3512.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
A pig by weight is the equivalent or more of a human being. Now imagine a million humans living on several thousand acres of land 7 miles from your town. Looking at this comparison strictly in terms of waste, the pigs would actually leave less waste than humans considering the things humans consume and throw away. In any case the bodily waste of such a concentrated collection of humans or pigs is colossal. How do we know this? We know it because there is such a farm located 7 miles from Veracruz in Mexico. It is an American owned hog farm.
Residents who live by this farm 7 miles away complain of intense infestations, even clouds of flies. The well water in the region has been decimated by the runoff of fecal matter and the evaporation ponds on this facility give off odor on an order of magnitude that renders nausea to those who dare inhale.
In considering a facility like this, (and there are others around the world), where massive concentrations of livestock are grown, it appears the impact on the farm land as well as the human habitat for miles around is profound. At ground zero on one of these farms (I use the term “farm” loosely here, it is more like a factory), the probability of disease is exponentially increased. With mountains of animal waste, flies and who knows what else, humans have manifested giant Petri dishes all around the globe.
The first case of “Swine Flu” was detected in this town. Of course governments from both countries deny that such factories could manifest anything like a pandemic but I wonder ………….
The Black Plague of the 1300’s affected the world population as well as the social behavior of the world culture during that time after losing almost 40% of the collective population. It is widely believed this plague was carried by fleas on rats. While it is common to put the blame on the fleas or the rats or both, the human health conditions being the cause is sometimes overlooked. Cities were breeding grounds for the rats carrying the fleas. Europe particularly had been experiencing overpopulation in the cities and immediately before the plague years had experienced food shortages due to climate changes. Does any of this sound familiar or is it just me. In the 1300’s it wasn’t called Swine Flu because in a sense the human cities had become the breeding ground. It was called the Black Death, and there were many who believed the disease and death was caused by the Jews who had made their way to European cities and had poisoned the well water (here we go again with the conspiracy theories). The contemporary medicine men of the times never did figure out what the Black Death was all about. One day people just stopped dying.
I looked up Swine in the dictionary. Stay with me, humor me here: (A) Swine; a vicious, contemptible or disgusting person. (B): any of a family of omnivorous artiodactylous mammals with a coat and elongated flexible snout. If you were naming a flu like the one we now have and you understand that it is a combination of human, bird and pig swill, I thinking (using our definition of Swine) that A+B+B (bird swill)= F (the viperous flu). We have our conspiracy theories for the swine flu outbreak but I can pretty much guarantee that without the vital ingredient of A in any capacity you would not have F in any capacity. If I had to choose A,B or F, I think B is sounding kind of warm and fuzzy as the definition I wanna join. Unfortunately I have more than 2 or 4 toes (artiodactyls), but it’s nothing a little cosmetic surgery won’t cure, hell I even have an elongated snout!
The links below take you to source articles for this blog. http://www.truthout.org/043009S
www.narconews.com/Issue57/article3512.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
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