SHE TOLD him of the morning years ago and miles away when she had been evicted by deputies, her doomed fiancé behind bars and awaiting sentencing. Her father had been her only relative and he was an alright man but had been killed far from home. So she wandered the streets of Biloxi with her infant firstborn and assorted belongings in a shopping cart, and pregnant with her second. Read More
Mons Simplicitatis
McCARTHY MAKES IT INTO GTA5
September 28, 2013
It's splendid to see that one of Jedi Master Cormac McCarthy's iconic scenes is depicted in Grand Theft Auto 5. Specifically, the drug deal gone awry at the beginning of No Country For Old Men. The National Book Award and Pulitzer must be nice and all, but I doubt there's any higher standard for literary achievement than getting a nod from the Grand Theft Auto series. Read More
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TO KNOW THE CONSTANT
September 15, 2013
ON TSUS
August 12, 2013
It has come to the author’s attention that the drug Tsus depicted in Tea of Ulaanbaatar is currently being listed on the Fictional Drugs in Non-Science Fiction Works page of a certain online encyclopedia site. This supposition, which a quick Google search revealed is supported by several other Web sources, is incorrect. Whereas Tea is a novel, that is to say a fictional work, the Mongol Tsus is not, and the record should be set straight in this regard. Read More
EAT ME DRINK ME ESPRIT DE CORPS: APOTHEOSIS
July 19, 2013
BEFORE I knew what an oblique incision to the lateral humeral condyle was, or what a longitudinal cut of a flexor surface was, or through the intercostals… before we started taking our Zoloft with the caps of Psilocibe semilanceata mushrooms… before I’d met a girl who wanted to be touched on the thighs with lit cigarettes… Read More
COUP D'ETAT - N. A DECISIVE ACTION IN POLITICS, ESPECIALLY ONE RESULTING IN A CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT ILLEGALLY OR BY FORCE
July 11, 2013
Poignant essay in The Huffington Post by the Executive Director of the MIT Center for International Studies, on how the internal security apparatus's domestic spying constitutes a coup d'etat.
ON MATTERS SNOWDEN
July 2, 2013
Oh okay, so James Clapper kinda sorta apologized to Congress for lying to their faces. Regarding these data sweeps so vast they defy comprehension, he “simply didn’t think of [it]” he wrote in a recent letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein. That’s not a joke. I’m not making that up. Read More
SOMEBODY GET SNOWDEN TO REYKJAVIK FFS
June 11, 2013
USA Today quoted Johannes Tomasson, spokesman for Iceland’s Ministry of the Interior, as saying Edward Snowden needs to be in the country to apply for asylum. Aw jeez. The guy might be a little busy trying not to be murdered, Mr. Tomasson. Media accounts portray Wikileaks’ involvement and possible assistance to Snowden as less than decisive. Maybe that’s just what’s making the newspapers, though. Read More
BOUNDLESS INFORMANT, PRISM, AND LACK OF CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS, KINDA SORTA HALFWAY A BIG DEAL
June 9, 2013
So it’s really in our faces now, there are some within our government who wish to turn America into a sort of Airstrip One surveillance state, but with fully-stocked Wal-Mart shelves. At this point, why even pretend otherwise? Implied in 1984: Telescreens are super fucking fun, and highly effective at population control, so long as you’re the 1% who’s behind them, as opposed to being in front of them. Read More
MOSQUITO RULE
May 15, 2013
WHEN WESLEY first arrived, they were on him like leopards on a gazelle. The instant he set foot off the ferry onto the continent at Tangier. First the customs agents then the people hanging around the pier. He must have looked like some stupid white foreign sack of cash to them. He forced his way into a taxi and the mob followed him all the way to the train station. They actually followed running on foot. The crowd slapped at the windows like a scene from some Frontline documentary. Read More