The Society of Mental Midgets; An American Experience

By Ryan Herle

Sometimes you just have to shake your head and say to yourself, "what was that guy thinking?" 

Yesterday I did just that.

When I first began to read this article in the Wall Street Journal I thought it to be a lark; a late "April Fools" joke.  Alas, I was horrified to discover it to be authentic; I'm still reeling from the revelation that there are still people alive today that believe that they can tempt fate by doing really dumb, dumb things, and that God will protect them.

"Hold my beer and watch this" moments are relatively common; rarely do they include the pastor of a church, his pregnant 20 year old wife, and dozens of parishioners.

I'm speaking of the idiot in Tennessee who plays with venomous snakes DURING church services.

Here is the article;
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577309570173259662.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

And to demonstrate the absurdity of this fellow, I have become slightly absurd myself;

" "Teasing snakes, fire-eating, and pole dancing for donations."

This year's Easter service at the Tabernucle Church of Gawd in Le
Flechette, Tenn., will include many of the holiday's traditional
rituals, like Holy Communion and footwashing. There will also be some
startling novelties, such as an utter prohibition on the fondling of
alter boys and placing a lock on the collection box; recently it has
been raided by what are suspected to be teenagers looking for spare
change with which to buy candy bars while at school.

"It will be filled with shouting, dancing, speaking in tongues like
Messican and French, snake teasing and fire eating," said its
21-year-old pastor, Andre Hamlin, after showing us his impressive
collection of Gene Simmons collectables. "KISS is simply the most
awesome Rock Band ever; why, Gene Simmons hit song "God of Thunder" is
the reason I'm a preacher today!"

Pastor Hamlin directed us to a wall covered in photographs of Gene
Simmons' performances; "He came all the way to Tennessee just to show
me how to eat fire like he does on stage; though I wasn't able to
master the three minute deluge of blood from the mouth while singing
God of Thunder; I got really light headed and had to drink some orange
juice."

The Pastor hopes he will be more conditioned to attempt the feat again
next year. "All you've got in life is time, an inexhaustible supply of
free government cheese, and the hope that next year you'll win the
Megabucks's lottery jackpot; if that happens, well, its 'so long
suckers, I'm buying a Yacht!"

When asked about the timeline for these events at the church, Pastor
Hamlin said "We gonna start at 6AM, and we're hoping to get scnockered
before noon; so blotto that we don't even know where we are, and
that's before we even begin to drink the peyote water! We'll celebrate
the resur, ah, resura, hmmm. the resurgence of Jebus with a good old
time; liquor, pot; maybe even a stripper or two. Old Jebus, he liked a
good party; he even turned water into wine, so you can't tell me He
didn't know how to have a good time!"

When asked about the inclusion of strippers into the event, Pastor
Hamlin said "Jebus lllooovvveeedd the ladies. He was hanging around
with a hooker; you can't tell me he wasn't getting a little on the
side with that gal! And Jebus? His gospel clearly states that we
should do our best to support single mothers, one dollar bill at a
time..."

Since he opened its doors last fall, Mr. Hamlin's small Pentecostal
church, 39 miles north of Koxville, has grown to almost 50 members,
most of them in their 20s. Part of his strategy for expansion has been
to use Facebook to publicize the daredevil exploits of his
congregation. "What we got here is some freestyle BMX competition
bikes, an empty swimmin' pool for skateboarding in, and gallons of
diet Mountain Dew to hydrate with while we nourish our bodies,
consuming Dorito's and Pop Rocks by the pound; you can't tell me that
nowhere else got anything better than that!"

Best known for what they call "gifts of the unlocked meat locker,"
like sneaking out at midnight and hiding large parcels of frozen meat
in their underwear, Pastor Hamlin said "If there's one thing that
tastes better than a big hunk of barely cooked meat, its a big hunk of
STOLEN barely cooked meat."

The church is also known in the area for its members dressing in
orange robes while seeking donations at the airport. "It ain't fraud
if we don't tell em' we're Harry Krishners; if they assume that, well,
they're the dummies!"

Records show that churches such as this are popping up almost as
quickly as an erection in a boarding school for teenage boys; The
start of churches like this dates back to 1901 and has mushroomed in
recent decades to some 15 million adherents in the U.S. and 279
million world-wide, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public
Life.

But the major Christian denominations condemn teasing snakes, though
most haven't any qualms with the rest of the practices of this young
Pastor; one Pastor, who asked not to be identified, said "Its not that
we care about the snakes, or even the people holding the snakes; its
the damn PETA and Humane Society people we don't want to deal with. I
don't understand why they get so upset, anyway; its just a snake! And
its a snake that make Eve eat the forbidden fruit, so I think we have
a pretty clear biblical authority to abuse snakes anyway we want! You
see models like Kelly Labrock wearing snakes around her neck during
lingerie modeling shoots; do you see anyone complaining that she's
abusing them snakes? Of course not! Because snakes ain't real animals
anyway - they don't got no cute face or no feet!

Pastor Hamlin's risk-taking sometimes gets the best of him. At
midnight on New Year's Eve, he was bitten on his index finger by a
yellow timber rattlesnake. He staggered and then dropped to his knees.
After a few minutes, he got up.

The pastor has yet to go to trial; the snake has been too ill to
testify about how he was sexually assaulted and then poisoned.

When we interviewed the snake, he said in halting, pained english
"....Ssssst jusssst issssn't right! There I wasssss, minding my own
businesssss, when thisss, thisss ASSSSSHOLE picked me up by my
anussssss. You'd bite too, if it happened to you! But what wasssss
worssssse wassss that he wassss covered in sssssso much telivisssssion
makeup, that I nearly died from masssscara poissssioning!"

When reflecting on the incident, the Pastor said "I felt the anointing
of God more than I'd ever felt," as he shoved a full slice of pizza
into his mouth. "I suppose it could have been snake venom, but how
then would you account for the fact that I also started to have
visions and see angels? Some might say it was the mescaline I was
taking, but I know for certain Jebus was riding the unicorn that was
talking to me."

A boyish-looking young man, Mr. Hamlin has a day job as a cashier at
the local IGA store and lives with his wife and four children in a
three-bedroom apartment. His Facebook page is full of photos of him
panhandling, picking cotton and various kinds of manual labor, most
often while carrying a sign that read "will trade mushrooms for ca$h."
Despite Tennessee's ban on the possession of psilocybin mushrooms,
Pastor Hamlin says "they're a great source of much needed additional
income; plus, like I always say "If it comes from the ground, God made
it, and its probably ok. There were a few instances when I first
started picking and selling mushrooms where I got the wrong one's,
though thankfully nobody died. One time I even mistook a big piece of
deer crap for a mushroom; you should have seen it! I tried to smoke
that for an hour before my buddy pointed out that there was corn in
it!"

Not all of his friends are pleased about his recent rise to fame. On
Facebook, a woman from his nearby hometown wrote: "You were raised
better than that!!! IDIOT!! That's tempting God, and I do believe the
Bible says U should NOT tempt God!!!"

He replied "Who you talking to, mom? Get thee back into the kitchen
before I have daddy come in there and whoop your ass!"

"Snake teasing," as he refers to it, began in 1909 near Cleveland,
Tenn., and has been practiced ever since in West Virginia, eastern
Kentucky, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and parts of
Alabama and Georgia. Practitioners say it fills them with the divine
light of being able to torture small animals that can't cry, and
nobody cares if they get caught; said one "if you pull the wings off a
fly, who cares? Nobody! If you burn ants with a magnifying glass, who
cares? Nobody. If you take a snake and pretend that you're Indiana
Jones and its your bullwhip, who cares? Nobody."

"But if you take something like a cute bunny, or a kitten or one of
the babies from the crack mother halfway house and do the same thing,
people get all angry with you."

Their right to torture small animals in enshrined in Markthew 13, 21
"[he whom is righteous] will cast out diamonds; they will speak with
new dentures; they will take up serpents and use them as toys, and if
they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them, so long as
they get to the poison control ward of the hospital in less than 30
minutes."

"The tradition of torturing snakes and small animals had been
declining until recently because of effective education on what is
considered to be an abuse of animals, as such, the practice kind of
fell by the wayside, as those churches aged and not attracting new
believers," said Rolph Houd, a psychology professor at the University
of Tennessee at Chattanooga who has written about the practice. "But
now that it's gone digital, that is going to increase its popularity."

Prof. Houd has seen an uptick of young practitioners. "When they feel
called and have the anointing, they are like rock stars," he said.
"Every one of them wants to be Gene Simmons, and when they tease
snakes for the first time and get away unbitten, they either have
'victory,' in which they get a free soft serve at the Dairy Queen, or
if bit and even killed, that demonstrates their huge, bright shiny
brass balls and will forever be remembered as being "wicked awesome
dude's."

The term "anointing" that the pastor refers to regularly, is, in his
own words, power given by Vidal Sassoon. He believes that when people
are anointed, nothing evil can hurt them, not even damp air that would
under normal circumstances cause a loss of volume and make hair look
flat and greasy; "yeah, that Vidal; he's quite THE MAN!" said Pastor
Hamlin. "I don't know where I'd be without him; for sure I wouldn't
have my rock star hair, and then what would I be, hum? I wouldn't be
no rock star, that's where! Because we all know that to be a rock star
you have to look like a rock star; women's clothing, lots of makeup;
hair that makes a 76 year old woman reminisce about the days of yore
when they were children, before the automobile, when the beehive
hairdo was considered to be more of a status symbol than owning any 10
negro slaves."

Standing in the front pew at the New Year's Eve service was a group of
young women in long skirts, long hair and no makeup. One of them was
Vagasil Powers, 21, of nearby Fat Duff, Tenn. She first handled a
snake in November: "The pastor had me come into his office, a little
confessional type arrangement; he had me put my hands through this
hole in the box, and he put the snake into my hands! It was awesome,
though it was kind of small. He kept encouraging me, he said "tug on
it harder, harder, faster, and so I did! In a few minutes the snake
put his ointment on my hands; I felt anointed, and I used that
ointment on my hair. Best ointment I ever used."

A few weeks later, her 24-year-old husband, Daniel, followed suit.

Mr. Hamlin's wife, Elspeth, 20, also embraces the practice. Although
she was 7½ months pregnant on New Year's Eve, she handled several
different snakes in the confessional that night. Mr. Hamlin said,
"I've had some awfully mean snakes that she's handled like house
cats."

The men of the congregation, while generally closed-lipped, seemed to
agree that she was an excellent handler of snakes.

Mr. Hamlin won't allow anyone under 18 to touch the reptiles; he's
concerned about child welfare laws, he says. He also said that he
wasn't allowed to be near children while alone, the result of a
terrible court order that came from the "completely false and
slanderous lies of a parishioner who was known for being a slut; when
I rebuffed HER advance to handle my snake, she called the police; what
is this world coming to when you can't trust a 6 year old?" opined the
Pastor.

Still, he guesses that there are at least 14 people under 30 who are
handling snakes in his office. One is Michelle Golden, 21, who said,
"I'd watched YouTube videos of people playing with snakes, and I used
to say 'I'm going to do that some day.'"

Michelle is preparing to audition for a spot on the most popular TV
show in Amsterdam; Hollands Top Hooker. "The pastor said I could do
anything I put my mind to, and can you believe? I'm going to Amsterdam
to prove that I give the best blo.. er, that I "play with snakes"
better than any other hooker in Holland! Take that Mr. Rogers!"

Mr. Hamlin said that he spent a year being encouraged by his father
before he took up playing with snakes when he was a child. "I love the
feeling of power, the anointing that moves on me when I play with
snakes, and I love how it feels when other people play with my snake,"
he said. "I'd rather play with snakes than eat or drink."

He learned the practice from his father, James Hamlin, 33, pastor of
the Full Guspel Tabernucle in Jebus Name in nearby Middlesboro, Ky.
"There are more younger people in it now than what it was when I got
married 21 years ago; I was kind of old to get married, everyone
figured I was a confirmed bachelor, so it took em all by surprise when
I got hitched at the ripe old age of 11; who'da thunk it?,"

The senior pastor Hamlin said that he estimates that there are some 20
churches in the area that have a room for people to play with snakes;
he said the hard part is in insuring they are all over the age of 18;
"those damn laws are put there by Satan to stop us from having joy!"
he exclaimed while discussing this topic.

As for the junior pastor Hamlin, "He has been a little antsy and
anxious, and I've had to get on him in wanting to have people play
with his snake a whole lot. I had to tell him it is not something you
have to do all the time," said his wife."

I think my version is more... likely to be true, lets just say; though, that's just my opinion.

Bill Cosby; A Man Who's Lost His Mind.

This week, Bill Cosby has taken it upon himself to solve the great mysteries of life; where did we come from, where are we going; and who's responsible for murder.

Bill Cosby says that "the gun" is responsible for murder.

Firearms are inanimate objects; they can do nothing on their own.  It is the operator who's responsible for what is done with the object; not the object who's responsible for the operator.

And as such, I have decided to demonstrate the absurd bloviations of Bill Cosby with a little absurdity of my own.

Here is the original article;

 http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/apr/7/simmons-bill-cosby-weighs-trayvon-martin-case/

And this is what it SHOULD read;

"Bill Cosby weighs in on Snooki's fat ass."

"The spoon™." Those two simple words flowed easily from the mouth of social commentator Bill Cosby during an exclusive interview Friday
regarding the recent weight gain of the colorful character from M-TV's
hit television show, "The Jersey Shore."

Nicole Elizabeth "Snooki" Polizzi appears to have gained an enormous
amount of weight over the last few months with rumors swirling of
pregnancy; these rumors were dispelled today to the disappointment of many loyal fans; the irrefutable fact being that no man would ever touch her, willingly, and as there are no reports of sexual assaults on the mentally ill, paraplegic, blind, retarded or pool boy's named Carlos; it is generally believed that pregnancy is simply not possible.

Mr. Cosby, a Navy veteran, said “the spoon™” empowered Ms. Snooki, whose actions of wanton consumption have stirred a firestorm of debate, protests and even remarks from First Lady Michelle Obama.

“We’ve got to get "the spoon™" out of the hands of people who are supposed to be on a diet,” said Mr. Cosby, whose remarks were the first he has made publicly about the case.

“Without "the spoon™," I don’t see Ms. Snooki approaching the buffet line by herself,” Mr. Cosby explained. “The "power-of-the-spoon™" mentality had her unafraid to confront the enormous pile of fresh baked donuts at the Atlantic Hotel and Casino; even police call for backup in similar situations."

“When you carry "the spoon™," you mean to eat something; you mean eat the hell out of something.” he said.

An award-winning actor and great American humorist, Mr. Cosby, 74, is best known for the ground-breaking NBC sit-com “The Cosby Show,” stand-up routines and recorded performances, all of which are infused with anti-obese humor.

Scheduled to perform April 28 at the Kennedy Center, Mr. Cosby continues to grace multiple platforms, and is scheduled to tickle funny bones as co-emcee at the April 12 gala celebrating the reopening of the historic Wellville vomitorium, first built and operated by Kellogg's Cereal inventor, John Harvey Kellogg, in the early part of the twentieth century, and which filed for bankruptcy protection in 1921.

Famous attendees at the Kellogg Wellville vomitorium included President Warren Harding, Maria Schreiber, W.C. Fields, Mae West, Calista Flockheart, and Billie Holiday; Wellville was never segregated.

But it was another anniversary that Mr. Cosby wanted to speak about today; the 30th anniversary of the US Supreme Court decision to allow spoons to be sold to the public without restrictions.

Mr. Cosby claims the failure of the Justices to place tight restrictions on the possession of jumbo sized spoons, self-filling spoons, collapsible spoons, and large packages of plastic spoons which can be easily concealed and which cannot be detected by metal detectors, has placed the public in peril.

He is demanding that congress immediately enact laws to protect the public by regulating possession of "the spoon™," through licensing and registration, fingerprinting, FBI background checks, and a slew of State and local ordinances to control where and how spoons may be possessed by the pubic, and to place tough restrictions on the concealed carry of "the spoon™."

"Nobody except the Police should ever have "the spoon™" in public; this is America, not the wild west; we don't tolerate vigilante consumption any longer."

When asked about his opposition to possession of "the spoon™" by minors, Mr. Cosby replied; "It just isn't safe to allow children access to "the spoon™." Only a crazy person would think its okay for children to have "the spoon™" at school or any other public place; they're just too dangerous! We also need to prohibit the possession of "the spoon™" by adults in a 1,000 foot radius of any school; mere proximity gives our children the wrong message that "the spoon™" is harmless and that it is the hand that lifts the spoon to the mouth which is to blame; the fact is, without the spoon NOBODY could ever become obese!!!"

Mr. Cosby takes pride in his battle on the forefront of other controversial social policy such as mandatory licensing and powerful restrictions on businesses that sell spoons, allow the use of spoons, provide spoons for their customers use while on their premises, or which provide their customers with spoons for take-out meals.

"You can't just have every person out there with "the spoon™," Mr. Cosby said. "That's just insanity! Imagine if every person in the world had a spoon; everyone would be so grossly overweight that they would require a great deal of medical care, and that could bankrupt the world economy."

Mr. Cosby was unable to provide a reason as to why there were so many starving children in Africa, despite the proliferation of "the spoon™" to almost every person as a result of civil unrest and vicious coup-de-tat's beginning in the 1960's; "I simply don't know."

In his remarks at a 2004 event raising public awareness of the
virulent increase of "the spoon ™" in society and denouncing the "TEA SPOON™" as being a "Carefully constructed Trojan Horse of the TEA PARTY" to ensnare our youth into the gritty world of "spoon-on-tongue violence™."

Mr. Cosby pointed out to the audience that spoon manufacturers had essentially created a new lower rung on the socioeconomic ladder by failing to provide parents with tools to police their children's eating habits.

Since then, he has traveled the nation and used social media to expound the virtues of nanny government supervision, responsible rationing of food to the obese, and to share his vision of a "spoon free society™."

©Ryan J Herle, 2012

I grant free license for the use of this peace for any non-commercial purpose, except for social commentary and/or criticism of the author; use of this work in whole or in part for commercial purposes or ad hominem comments about the author are specifically prohibited; US and International Copyright laws apply. Violations of applicable law are investigated and prosecuted by the FBI.

This piece may not be altered in any way; it must be quoted "as written;" including vernacular, spelling, or sentence structure; no "out of context" quotes may be made. All use must attribute the original author.

"The spoon™" is copyrighted and a trademark of Ryan J Herle under US and International Law. Commercial use is prohibited.

"power-of-the-spoon™" is copyrighted and a trademark of Ryan J Herle under US and International Law. Commercial use is prohibited.

"Spoon-on-tongue violence™." is copyrighted and a trademark of Ryan J Herle under US and International Law. Commercial use is prohibited.

"TEA SPOON™" is copyrighted and a trademark of Ryan J Herle under US and International Law. Commercial use is prohibited.

©Ryan J Herle, 2012

Demonstrate absurdity by being absurd; applying the Trayvon Martin filter:

Were we to write a news story with the same prejudicial style and presentation of facts as what has been seen thousands of times when the Press publish a story about Trayvon Martin, I imagine they would look something like this;

Here is an actual article;
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/04/06/crowd-beats-strips-robs-tourist-on-st-patricks-day-incident-caught-on-camera/

This is what it would read were the Trayvon filter applied to it;

"Racist white man walking home after attending a St. Patrick's day
party at KKK headquarters assaults Neighborhood Watch patrol."

The text of the story would then read;

"Mike Hellgren, a young racist conservative was on his way home after
attending a Klu Klux Klan party, when he was confronted by the local
neighborhood watch, which consisted of a large group of peaceful local
community organizers; after Hillgren refused to leave the area at a
run, the neighborhood watch said they were compelled to try and beat
him to death in self-defense.

Mr. Hellgren was, with one mighty and powerful sucker-punch, knocked
to the ground with such force that the back of his head struck the
pavement with an audible rapport; it is likely he suffered a terrible
concussion and was debilitated to the point where he was not only
unable to continue his attack on the neighborhood watch, but that he
lost all memory of why he had begun to attack them in the first place;
akin to "having the white knocked out of him," according to one
source.

After the initial punch that knocked Hellgren to the ground, the
neighborhood watch proceeded to punch and kick him in the face, chest
and head; they said they felt their lives were in danger so long as he
was capable of aspirating without artificial support; When the clear
and present menace of Hillgren was finally neutralized by several
expertly aimed kicks at his head and testes, they searched him and
removed all the weapons in his possession; they were compelled to take
his clothing so that he couldn't attempt to strangulate any children
or elderly residents of the area with his tainted undergarments when
he awoke and continued his felonious trek to the nearest Neo-Nazi Rally.

"We thorough and ain't leavin' that honkey nothin' he can use to
assault us," said Kwando Koffi, a member of the neighborhood watch.

Mr Hellgren awoke the next morning in his hotel room, completely
unaware of what had transpired; the concussion caused global amnesia
for a short period of time. He had no recollection of why he was
severely injured, and what had caused the great number of severe
lacerations on his head, face and chest.

Local wise men claim that Hellgren could not possibly have sustained a
concussion, as its a "well known fact that white people are soulless
puppets of Satan that lack any personality or self-determination to
begin with."  Said one of the neighborhood elders.  "To say that a
white man thinks is like trying to explain the "theory" of "two bit
Tuesday tacos at Taco John's."  Just because we get tacos for ¢25
doesn't mean that some piece of trailer trash can have some, now does
it?"

Hellgren only recently discovered what it was he had done to the
neighborhood watch; a family member saw a video that had been made and
posted on the internet, ostensibly to encourage other neighborhood
watches to overcome their fear of the white devil; "When they see that
these peckerwoods ain't invincible, they'll be less fearful of
defending themselves when a cracker comes to their area. We got that
damn white boy, and now our oppressed brothers in other cities have
pictures to watch on how to do it."

As of yet, the incompetent prosecuting attorney, police department and
the Federal Law Enforcement assets assigned to this case have been
unable to arrest Hillgren for his brutal attack on the neighborhood
watch, even though they have high definition video showing his
unprovoked mandible assault on the fist of the Block Captain, and are
in possession of his identity documents, house keys and other 'private
possessions.'

Baltimore PD detective Nichellee Daennanae, used strong language when
briefing the press on the assault; she said; “The neighborhood watch
had every right to be where they were, and to get back home to their
families safely that night; Hillgren posed a significant threat to the
neighborhood and as such, they were well within their rights to defend
themselves against Hillgren's deadly, unprovoked assault."

"Hillgren's behavior by resisting their lawful use of deadly force was
just criminal."

One resident, who identified himself as Hutu Tutsie, the second in
command of the local chapter of the New Black Panther Party, told this
reporter today that "any honkey that comes into this neighborhood had
better watch his back; we don't hold with their kind here, which is
why we have this Neighborhood Watch patrol; the guy got what he had
coming to him; he should have kept his cracker ass where it belongs,
back in the trailer park, instead of coming down here to our beautiful
clean neighborhood; who does he think he is anyway; a person? Hell no,
he ain't no person; he's a white devil!"

"The only way these vicious attacks by them Casper's is gonna stop is
when 'their kind' are too afraid to come to our neighborhood, and the
only way to make sure that happens is to meet their sneak attacks with
overwhelming force; atom bomb on a kindergarten full o' retarded white
kids type shit," Said Hutu Tutsie, as he washed his baseball bat in
preparation for defending community residents against The Man at
polling places next week.

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness," he said, as he applied a thin coat
of O-ethyl S-[2-(diisopropylamino)ethyl] methylphosphonothioate, also
known by its military name, VX nerve agent, onto the striking surface of the bat.
 "When you're talkin' bout makin' sure our people get to the polls,
 you gotta make sure those soulless rednecks can't;
  otherwise they'll use that thing they call
"logic" to vote for a guy, and we can't have that kind of interference
in our elections; the only right way to choose a candidate is based
solely on his skin color and how large his lips are; the blacker he is and the bigger the
lips are, the better the candidate," said Tutsie.

Meanwhile, Hellgren has been found to be suffering from severe and
permanent brain damage as the result of his ordeal; his physician said
"Hellgren lost more than a few brain cells, that's for sure! If he's
wise, he'll keep his white ass back where it belongs; in the
trailer park.  The next time he come down here the neighborhood watch
might be forced to kill him, then find his family using the identity
documents from his wallet that we, er, they took from him as
evidence..."

"That justice don't need to happen, so long as he stays where he
belong, but the burden is on Hellgren to keep his family safe by
staying where he supposed to be; if he come back here again for
treatment, I'm going to blow air into his IV, right before I perform
an anesthetic-free trans-ocular lobotomy."

The physician, whom is also a member of Nation of Islam, refused to
speculate on how much damage was done to Hillgren; "It wasn't enough,
clearly; he's still breathing."

Police continue their search for witnesses, but are not optimistic;
"Initially, a few residents came forward claiming to have information,
but were unable to identify Hillgren from his driver license photo;"
said Sargent Hussein Alzaquahari.

"Those crackers all look the same!" exclaimed a Kwazai Infume, a local
resident who initially came forward after having witnessed Hillgren's
attack on the neighborhood watch patrol. "Hahaha! He was so fucked up
in that video he don't look like the guy in the picture, so I couldn't
make a 100% positive ID; the police told me that they ain't gonna try
and use a "maybe" in court when it comes to identifying him; they said
they'll try and find witnesses that can make a positive ID, so that he
don't use the possibility of a mus-identification as a strategy to
subvert justice by exercising his constitutional rights. That sound
real smart to me ."

As such, the police say they have no evidence to charge Hillgren with
a hate crime when he assaulted the fists and feet of the neighborhood
watch with his nose and jaw; though they are hoping a reliable witness
will come forward soon.

A police officer, who wishes to remain anonymous, said; "I don't care
if the witness is lying or not; give me something to use so I can give
that cracker what he's got coming to him."

Currently Hillgren is hiding at his mother's house in Augusta,
Georgia; as soon as we are able to discover her address, a follow up
report will be made in this newspaper.

If you have any information on this heinous hate crime attack, please
notify your nearest Black Panther Party Representative so that
Hellgren can be dealt with appropriately.

You should not try to apprehend him on your own; he should be
considered white and dangerous.

There is a $10,000 reward being offered by Kaszhimead Shalequa, Pastor
of the Broken Promises Baptist church, for the first person confirmed
to have shot Hillgren.

Anyone with information that leads to an arrest and conviction of
Hillgren will also be eligible to receive a new Cadillac Escalade,
complete with undercarriage lighting, spinning 24 inch rims, and a
years supply of grape soda, which has been donated by local Crime
Stoppers."


Utterly offensive; I agree.  However were I not to use bombast, hyperbole, and drama, nobody would read this, and my point would be lost.


My point is that ANYONE can be made to look a victim or perpetrator; all it takes is a stroke of a pen or the pressing of a button on the keyboard.

"On Trayvon Martin; Applying the Trayvon Martin litmus test to other events around the Country."

Every day in the United States is marred by the unnecessary and senseless killing of citizens, by citizens.  According to the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics (1), in 2010 (the most recent statistics published) there were approximately 14,748 murders within the US; in comparison, in 1960 (the first year statistics were kept) there were 9,110 murders.

While this appears to be a paltry increase in the number of murders, in comparison to the increase of population (179,323,175 persons in 1960 - 308,745,538 in 2010 (2)), it appears as though violent crime has diminished remarkably.

This is the case when looking at "murder," however, when we simply look past the terminology we see a clearly defined effort on the part of the FBI to manipulate those numbers in many ways.

However, that is incidental to what I am writing about.

With 14,748 actual confirmed murders in 2010, the statistic shows us that there is an average of 40.4 murders per day within the US.  Of those murders approximately 65% are solved (3); for those that remain unsolved, the likelihood of discovering the murderer in the future diminishes drastically after the first year.

It is generally believed that the majority of unsolved murders are related to organized crime, street gangs, and persons whom were actively engaged in criminal enterprise; as such, no great effort is generally spent in trying to find their killers; the traditional wisdom being that people who live in that world will eventually either get caught by the police, or killed by a rival gang/enterprise.

However, when we look to the crime statistics of the United States, we begin to see clear and convincing evidence to show that while the vast majority of unsolved murders ARE criminal-on-criminal, there are still many that can't be classified as such.

Victims with no criminal past, no known enemies; victims whom have no great wealth or power or fame.  Victims whom are deprived of their lives for motives nobody can understand; they are simply found dead with no explanation.

When we begin to extrapolate the data, however, even the most casual of observers begins to see a series of deeply disturbing coincidences, possible coverups, obfuscations, a clear lack of desire on the part of the police to investigate, and one more thing that is NEVER spoken about publicly...

The race of the victim in comparison to the perpetrator.

It is not my intention to race-bait; nor am I interested in summoning up bigotry, hatred or to attempt to make any group look as though its inherently criminal or endemically violent.

It IS my intention to clearly and unambiguously document the conspiracy within Law Enforcement to manipulate the statistics used to judge their performance, the overt actions of certain groups and individuals to "color" crime; noting that "Karl, 36" is black IS NOT RACIST.  Its a "description."  How do you describe a person to another who's never seen him?  "His name is Karl, 36, 6'1", 205 lbs, black hair, brown eyes, dark complexion." 

For the purpose of complete disclosure on this topic, I will now introduce crime statistics according to race; these numbers come from FBI Uniform Reports and has been extrapolated by  New Century Foundation a 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1994 to study immigration and race relations so as to better understand the consequences of America's increasing diversity. (4)

http://www.colorofcrime.com/colorofcrime2005.pdf

Draw your own conclusions.






(1) http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats
(2) http://2010.census.gov/news/releases/operations/cb10-cn93.html
(3) http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/crime/unsolved-murder-rate-increasing
(4) http://www.colorofcrime.com/

Are all strings made the same?

Augustine Strings

They bear the likeness of The Master, his personal greeting and recommendation.

I am not impressed by celebrity endorsements.

However, Andreas Segovia was not only instrumental (no pun intended) in developing the nylon string, but worked in concert with Albert Augustine (Master Luthier and Luthier TO The Master), whom in turn both worked with DuPont, to develop the modern nylon classical guitar string.

I have played many strings; Savarez, Sevilla, Vinci, Washburn (turns out they're Vinci as well), Fender, and yes, Augustine.

Augustine Regal Gold are unbelievable good; and at a price that is incomparable. I have played "better" strings, or so they claim; but none have the tonality initially or over time that Augustine strings do. Especially when you consider the "bang for the buck." Sevilla may sound better for a week or two, but under long sessions they stretch and change tonality so much that I have to re-tune multiple times during a session; afterwords I have to relax tension or the next time I go to play, the strings are quite sharp and excessive tension has been placed on my neck during storage.

Augustine stretch less over time, but are incredibly supple and flexible; so much so that you never notice they are more technically rigid and tuned with a higher tension than Sevilla or Savarez; for my dollar they are the best on the market, and I am proud to say "I use The Master's Strings."