A Surprise Message From US Senator Jon C. Porter

Got this message from Sen. Jon C. Porter two days ago at my Hotmail account, and I pass it onto you.

Won't reveal the nature of the surprise in the text below here, but will say that, considering just how pro-Administration Porter's generally been in his time in office, the sentiments on display here raised my eye-brows, to say the least.

Be seeing you.





August 13, 2007

Mr. Donald Rilea
457 N. Lamb, Unit F
Las Vegas, NV 89110-3376

Dear Donald:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the dismissal of eight U.S. Attorneys, including Nevada's U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden. I appreciate hearing from you on this serious matter.

As you may know, political appointees, including U.S. Attorneys, serve at the pleasure of the President. In 1993, President Clinton asked all 93 U.S. Attorneys to resign when he became President, and he asked several more to resign throughout his Presidency. Recently, 8 U.S. Attorneys were asked to resign from the Department of Justice.

After hearing testimony from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, I believe the Department of Justice has egregiously mishandled the firing of the eight attorney generals in question. Attorney General Gonzales has become a distraction and, as a result, has lost the confidence of the American people.

Attorney General Gonzales must step down for his actions in dismissing exemplary public servants like Daniel Bogden, who fought for the residents of Nevada for 5 years.

Should you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Jon C. Porter
Member of Congress

JCP/sm

PS: Please sign up for my e-newsletter at http://www.house.gov/porter/.

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Message From Nevada Democratic Veterans and Military Families' Caucus

Got this e-mail message two days ago from the Nevada Democratic Veterans and Military Families Caucus, and thought I might as well pass this on to my Las Vegas area friends to see, and, if possible, so they could participate in this.

Yep, am opposed to the Iraq War, the Bush Administration and its supporters, but, in my opinion, there's no reason to take out one's anger with those who make the policies on those who are its mere instruments.

Anyway, check this out, and decide for yourselves.

Be seeing you.




HELP END THIS INJUSTICE & ACTUALLY Support the Troops



Who: Nevada Democratic Veterans & Military Families, Local Las Vegas Unions, Concerned Americans

What: Care Package Building (w/refreshments)

Where: Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 525 Union Hall

760 N. Lamb Blvd.

Las Vegas, NV 89110

When: Saturday August 25th 2007, 1 pm- 4 pm



Our troops' first stop after being injured in Iraq is a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Unfortunately our government does not provide a way for every soldier, marine, airman, and sailor to contact loved ones after being injured. As a result our troops depend on donations to the Landstuhl Military Chaplain's to call home.



This is unacceptable and an unforgivable outrage. We must provide the support to our troops that our government is unable to provide. The main thing we want everyone to bring is phone cards for our troops. This way they can call their family after they are injured in Iraq. We are also asking for items such as beef jerky, batteries, razors, old & new magazines, misc. toiletries, cds, dvds, books, and other comfort items.



Financial donations will help with the postage to send these items to our troops.

If you can not come, or your organization can not attend, a donation of $200 or more dollars would be appreciated to help take care of postage.

Last time we did an event like this the postage went into the thousands.

Please send donations to:

Nevada Democratic Veterans & Military Families Caucus: 1210 S. Valley View Ste. 114, Las Vegas NV 89102, or donate online at http://www.nvdemocraticvets.com



Please join the Nevada Democratic Veterans & Military Families Caucus and Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 525 as we do something to help the troops who need our support.



Please RSVP to info@nvdemocraticvets.com

A Tryptich Of Radio-Related Links

A friend of mine sent me these three links this evening.

They're related to how one can set up a non-profit FM station, and get the requisite FCC licence in the process.

The first's from the Democracy Now! web-site, and features Amy Goodman interviewing Libby Reinish, full power co-ordinator for the Prometheus Project, and Ursula Ruedenberg, Pacifica Radio Affiliates' Co-Ordinator and a member of RadioForPeople.org. It's at http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/10/142236.

The next one's to the home-page of http://www.getradio.org/, which helps non-profit groups get through the FCC licence application process, and the final one's at http://www.radioforpeople.org/, which is the web-site of RadioForPeople.org, a coalition of non-profit groups and individuals interested in creating alternatives to present-day FM radio.

Between 12th to 19th October, 2007, the FCC will be opening a window for non-profit organisations and community groups to apply for and get a full power non-commercial/educational licence, for the first time in seven years.

Once this time period passes, this window will be closed, perhaps, for many years to come.

So, if you have a non-profit community group or organisation that's interested in setting up a non-profit educational radio station, now's your chance.

Go check out the sites, see what they have to say, then decide if you want to go for it.

If you do, please move with all due speed, as the licences will undoubtedly go fast.

Be seeing you.

Story: In Cannibalism We Trust

This is part one of a new action figure-related story I came up with this evening, called "In Cannibalism We Trust", and is part of a general sort of action figure-related story-line that I've been working on in my head since January of this year.

Hope you enjoy it.

Be seeing you.




Once Upon A Time, in a land not too far away, and not very long ago, in fact, the events in this story have yet to happen, but that's beside the point, there was an enormous action figure and doll collection that belonged to a pair of Internet and real estate millionaires, who, unlike many of their contemporaries, had had the good sense to pull out of both markets, while the getting was good.

But, again, that's beside the point, as they both were so enamoured of action figures and dolls that they'd built up one of the world's largest collections of them.

So large was this collection, that it couldn't be stored entirely in the house on the enormous 5000 acre former cattle ranch-turned estate, they'd bought in Riverside, California, in the late '90's, so they created a set of mini-Madurodams, outdoor display dioramas patterned after the original Madurodam in the Netherlands.

Now, little did the pair know, but, then again, most action figure and doll collectors don't know this, that their figures and dolls, when their "organic"(as action figures and dolls call their creators and collectors) keepers weren't looking, came to life, and organized societies, complete in every detail, good, bad and indifferent, of their own, and this collection was no exception.

Indeed, because of the collection's sheer size, the societies, and everything therein, were multiplied a thousand-fold greater than most of their counter-parts in collections elsewhere.

But, for simplicity's sake, we will narrow down these to three major ones, the Centralian Union, which was centred around the main house and the properties immediately east and west of it, the Amalgamated Communities of Pacifica, which stood to the east of Centralia, and Dystopia, which extended from east of Pacifica, and went all the way to the southern end of the property.


Centralia had been controlled by a coalition of various right-wing figures, like the two variants on George W. Bush, the various Adolf Hitler figures, and so on, until a disastrous war with Pacifica, which was politically moderate to left-wing, and included such figure collections as the GI Joe Adventure Team, as well as various Soviet, Vietnamese Communist, and other such figures, in the spring of 2007.

The Centralians, along with some Dystopian allies, had invaded and occupied most of Pacifica for nearly a week, before the Pacificans finally rallied and threw them out.

This resulted in the Centralians deposing their former leaders, but the ones that replaced them had to contend with many problems resulting from the war and the heavy losses they'd taken.

So, all throughout the remainder of 2007 and all of 2008, Centralia was a weak and greatly divided place.
Pacifica recovered fairly quickly from the war, but it still had problems of its own with which to cope, plus those going in the Dystopian lands, which, even before the war, had hardly been known for their peace and harmony.

Dystopia wasn't always called that, nor was it always such a violent place, rent by war, terror and murder, as it was when our story begins.

Before the break between Centralia and Pacifica over political differences in 2004, Dystopia was the newest area of settlement for figures from both parts of the collection who, for one reason or another, either didn't quite fit into their home societies, or who just wanted to carve out something for themselves in those frontier lands.

Both Centralia and Pacifica helped fund, transport and settle many of these figures and dolls in these new lands, and, for a while, it looked like the inhabitants of Terra Nova, as Dystopia was then known, would make quite a success from their efforts.

But, with the Centralian-Pacifican rift, much of the support for those settlements dried up as both Centralia and Pacifica regarded each other with increasing suspicion, and began making preparations to defend themselves from each other.


The Terra Novans, left on their own, began to succumb to various demagogues, and dictatorships of all sorts appeared throughout the territories.


Before long, societies patterned after those like the Oceanian dictatorship in George Orwell's 1984, or feudal despotisms like that of Boss Rudolph in H. G. Wells' Things To Come, or even the semi-anarchic roving bands like those found in the first two Mad Max films, became the dominant forms of society and government in Terra Nova, and, thanks to a Pacifican magazine columnist who visited there in 2005, they, and the whole of Terra Nova, acquired a new name-Dystopia, which caught on like wild-fire in both Centralia and Pacifica, and stuck.

Before long, even Terra Novans who had first resented and resisted the use of Dystopia to describe their homes were using it, and, with it, came a further descent into totalitarianism, chaos, terror and bloodshed.

Before too much time had passed, none of the once peaceful agricultural, communal, trading and industrial settlements that had been established in the Dystopian lands were under the control of their own peoples, as they'd been absorbed by one expanding tyranny or another.

But, these tyrannies were never happy to hold on to what they already had, as there were always compelling, political, economic, and strategic reasons for them to grab more, more, and still ever more territory and people.

And so, they, once they'd made alliances with one new nation or another, would just as quickly turn around, and try to gobble it up like a hungry coyote does a rabbit..

Sometimes, they'd succeed, and absorb their luckless neighbour. Other times, they'd fail, and end up being absorbed themselves.

When the Centralian-Pacifican War of 2007 came along, some of the larger and most ambitious of the Dystopian states, like Oceania, saw their chance to get in on what they believed to be a quick and easy victory by Centralia over Pacifica, and joined the former in their invasion of the latter.

But, their forces, along with those of the Centralians, were violently repulsed, with the bulk of their combatants being killed, wounded or taken prisoner by the Pacificans.

The Pacificans, in turn, attacked the Dystopian lands, like Oceania, and disabled most of what was left of their militaries and police forces.

Without strong military and police forces to prop up their rule, the Oceanians and other Dystopian allies of the Centralians governments soon collapsed, as their peoples rose up and threw them out.

But, instead of the peace, reconstruction and harmony so desired by many Dystopians, more madness, terror, civil war and murder followed, as the various rebels turned on each other, and fought each other over the remaining crumbs of economic and political power left behind by their oppressors.

In those Dystopian states that had not participated in the Centralian-Pacifican War, events hardly ran any better, as these, too, tried expanding onto the territories of their vanquished neighbours, with some succeeding, and others failing, and being destroyed in turn.

Then, there were those Dystopian lands that weren't interested in expanding into the territories of the former Centralian allies, but that wanted to grind their immediate neighbours into a fine powder, so to speak.

It is of a quintet of these that this story's about, and we will find out more about them, perhaps even a bit more than we want to, in our next part, Dear Readers.

Billy Connolly: The Welly Boot Song Video

This is an amateur music video of Billy Connolly's "Welly Boot Song" that I found on YouTube this evening.

It incorporates footage from the "Thomas The Tank Engine" series as an accompaniment to Mr. Connolly's tune.

Am no big fan of "Thomas The Tank Engine", but am of Mr. Connolly's work.

So, sit down, pull off yer Wellies(mind the smell), and have a good chortle or two.

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 21

Don't know the date on this clip, which is from a Taiwanese film set during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45(am judging by the uniforms worn by the characters in the clip), but suspect that it's probably from either the late '80's or early '90's, judging by the film stock.

Incidentally, the bugle tune being played in the clip is the Nationalist Chinese and Taiwanese flag raising song.

Some of you may also notice that the uniforms, and most especially the helmets, worn by some of the characters are of German design.

That's no accident, as between the early 1930's through about 1945, some units of the Chinese Nationalist army, especially the elite bodyguard troops assigned to protect Chiang Kai-Shek, were German-equipped, and this included the distinctive "coal-scuttle" steel helmets made famous during the First and Second World Wars.

However, given the disparity between various Central Government and Chinese regional armies during that period, some units wore British Mark I, or "soup-plate" helmets, others the old French Adrian 1916 helmets, others still the American Model 1942 "steel pot" helmet, and the vast majority had no steel helmets of any sort at all.

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 20

We now head over to the other side of the Taiwan Strait, with this clip from a 1978 Taiwanese combat film, set, judging by its characters' dress, in the mid-or late 1950's.

The film appears to be a kind of trials and tribulations of young soldiers in training, a sub-genre of the combat film which has, with occasional exceptions like "Stripes" in 1981, and "An Officer And A Gentleman" in 1982, pretty much disappeared from American and British cinema.

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 19

Our last clip from "The East Is Red" shows both the actors on-stage and the audience singing "The Internationale" at the film's close.

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 18

Another clip from "The East Is Red", in which a male narrator describes the horrors of pre-revolutionary Chinese society, while a stylised depiction of it is carried out by the actors and dancers on-stage.

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 17

This clip is from the climax of the opening part of "The East Is Red".

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 16

From North Korea, we head back to the People's Republic of China, and the opening title sequence from the 1964 revolutionary opera film, "The East Is Red".

This genre of Chinese film would become the dominant form of Chinese cinema during the Cultural Revolution from 1965-1976.

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 15

The following is an omnibus collection of film clips from various North Korean films made between 1964 and 1987, although some of the clips, like the animated cartoon "The Clever Raccoon Dog", might have been made later than those dates.

While only a superficial glimpse into DPRK cinema, this collection gives a fair idea of the various genres and themes to found in it.

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 14

Part two of "Shooting Range".

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 13

Another Soviet animated short, "Shooting Range", made in 1979 by V. Tarasov, which is about an unemployed young American in New York City who takes a job in a shooting gallery as a human target.

Extensive use is made of American pop culture icons like the Coca-Cola logo, Mickey Mouse, Thumper the Rabbit, and other Disney characters to make its generally unsuccessful argument about American society and culture.

This film's been divided into two parts, the first part, which is posted below, and the second part, which will be posted in the next blog post.

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 12

Our next subject is another Soviet animated short from 1983, "Conflict", which follows said conflict between two groups of matches.

Have to say that I think the story and animation in this particular short are extremely well done.

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 11

From the People's Republic of China, it's back to the Soviet Union, with a 1978 animated short called "Firing Range", about a kind of tank that can detect an enemy's physiological impulses and use them against him.

The story also involves a sub-plot about the tank's developer, a doctor whose son was killed in a colonial war, and whose commanding officer is among those witnessing the tank's testing trials.

Be seeing you.

Propaganda In Action 10

In contrast to the trailer for "Pork Chop Hill" listed below, we've a clip from the 1956 Chinese Korean War combat film, "Triangle Hill"(Shang Gan Ling), which was based on an incident during the 1952 battle of Triangle Hill during the Korean Conflict, in which a company of Chinese People's Volunteers machine gunners fended off an attack by US infantry.

The most striking things to note in this clip are, 1, the sort of massed, human wave style attack employed by the Americans in here(which, as a commentator to this clip on YouTube, whose father was a US Army second lieutenant during the Battle of Triangle Hill pointed out, didn't happen during the actual battle), and the kind of faceless, in-human, even horde-like quality given the Americans in this excerpt.

This is essentially a simple reversal of the kind of depictions of Chinese and North Korean soldiers often made in American Korean War films of the same period, such as "Pork Chop Hill".

How much of this sort of grossly over-simplified depiction of battle tactics and the enemy seen in these examples is due to the personal beliefs and prejudices of the film-makers themselves, the perceived need of these film-makers to tell these stories in the simplest kind of visual and story-telling short-hands possible, so that audiences will completely understand the goings-on on-screen, pressures, from either film studios or outside political interests, and the general political climates then prevailing in the US and PRC, I don't know.

Only a thorough study of the production circumstances behind each film would yield decisive answers.

But, the results, a kind of jingoistic, flattened-out portrayal of the enemy that essentially denies the enemy's individuality and humanity, can be readily seen, even by the biggest dolt.

That, perhaps, is the worst aspect of propaganda, in that issues and peoples are reduced to one-dimensional cartoons of what and who they are, or were, thus creating a kind of all-purpose bogeyman suitable for use by whatever interested parties that wish to exploit them for their own purposes.

Be seeing you.