Energy East, 2013

I understand the need for a pipeline.
It helps the economy.
Is a nationwide boon.
Jobs from here to Alberta.
How much natural landscape will
Really be affected?
Think about the great projects of nature:
Isn't the Natural World
One big Pipeline?
Or how about the Spiritual Plane;
In the last book of his Republic
Plato posits that the souls of rational beings 
Are pumped across the Elysian national dreamscape
A la tube.
I think Hegel saw history as something
Of an interplay of natural resources
Criss crossing the bare skeleton of nature
In pipelines of Absolute Reason.
Lenin would like them well enough.
Mao would love them.
Pipelines will defeat Nazis and Communists
By becoming Nazi and Communist.
A pipeline is the worst form of government
Except for all those others.
A pipeline is the stuff of Habermasian communication,
Democracy, friction-less capitalism,
The Internet!
A pipeline!
Love in the abstract
Is a swirling cascade of my natural gases
Pumped to your processing plant!
Don't you grasp how important this is!
The future is not just about stasis,
Not just about ideals,
Not just about the triumph or fall of Party or Nation,
Not just the return of divinity to
Mortal substance...
The future can be about making money too.

1649–1793–1917-????

• July 28: 1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien de Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (pictured left and right respectively), architects of the Reign of Terror, were executed after having been arrested the previous day.

The Brits appear themselves quite snide

And unrefined as Regicides;

Sleepless was Charles the first alright

In Whitehall on his final night.

Before his window sang the rabble

And he was trundled to the scaffold.

Not much nicer were the French.

In a fiacre they rushed

Lou Capet to the chopping bench;

They gave him no Calèche

As was the due etiquette

For such a Magisterial Head.

But even worse for Antoinette

She only got a wagonette!

In lieu of dame and chamberlain

A sans-cullotte was in her train;

Widow Capet so high and mighty

With that old Hapsburg under-bitey!

But what about those pushy Reds!

They rushed Tsar Nicholas out of bed

As if to get his fam in toto

To pose for a nice family photo!

If you thought camera-men were quick

You’ve never seen a Bolshevik.

But while the Soviets pushed along

The Chinese sung with Mao Zedong.

Forget a family to get rid of

The whole Han culture cut its head off.

How Unconfucian! With manners dread

They sing-a-long “the East is Red”.

But have the French learned politesse?

A ’68 will pass a test…

But barely pass – a mark that falls

Short of the standards of de Gaulle.

But maybe one or two learned manners

When they switched red for green banners.

French, British, Commies! They are wholly

Without tact; such tact is only

For the Amer'can – he’ll remain tactful

As long as Terror is attackable.

To the American tact sees

That only friendliness can please.

Act chummy and hop in the car

And drive out to the country, far

-With a cheerful smile – out past the border

To some lone camp called something or other

And there the bad guy’s treated fairly

And kept happy and living (barely).

Tchotchke Forecast 2014/15

Thanks to the good people at Defenestration Mag for publishing yet another of my funny papers!

http://www.defenestrationmag.net/2013/07/tchotchke-forecast-201415-by-jason-abdelhadi/

Kipling vs. RiFF RaFF (AKA the White Man's Burden)

Take up the White Man's burden—  Send forth the best ye breed—

 VS.

What does a 19th century Victorian man-of-letters-cum-imperialist have in common with the Sunshine State's skeeziest (and whitest) rapper? Turns out they share a veritable caravan of aesthetic of preferences including: guns, swag, bitches, booze, phrenology, drugs, old whips, racialism, animals (alive or skinned), the hot Southern sun of exotic climes, and of course rhymin’. The differences lie, so far as I can tell, almost exclusively in the domain of facial hair. Following on the success of the popular and quite poignant Jay-Z Lyric or Line from The Great Gatsby quiz, I present the following little academic “compare and contrast”. Can you guess which DWM (dirty white male) dropped which verse?

Highlight the Miami hot pink answer text to see the answer!

1. "I seed im runnin by when the shots begun to fly"
Answer: Kipling  


2. "Sounding real good. Might work the wood.
      I'm'a broke em off like to make my own wood."
Answer: Riff-RaF


3. "Next week I'll have em fitted
     I'll buy me a swagger-cane"
Answer: Kipling (continuation is even funnier: "they'll let me free o' the barricks to walk on the Hoe again")


4. "Wet an drippin by the ford.
     Ford, ford, ford."
Answer: Kipling   


5. "The jinglety-jink o the chains -Tss! Tss!"
Answer: Kipling   


6. "Laying face down dress down
     We on the,
     On the other side of seven seas."
Answer: Riff Raff 


7. "Don't call your Martini a crosseyed old bitch."
Answer: Kipling   


8. "She knifed me one night cuz I wished she was white."
Answer: Kipling  


9. "Just me and my kin 
       In the salamander skin."
Answer: Riff Raff 


10. "We was goin most extended
       We was drivin very fine."
Answer: Kipling  


11. "Pirate ships and treasure, 
       Yeah I got that treasure."
Answer: Riff Raff


12. "Two yellow companions at my mansion mud wrastlin.'"
Answer: Riff Raff 


13. "It was crawlin' and it stunk,
        But of all the drinks I've drunk..."
Answer: Kipling   


14. "Cheetah skin outside the parka
       Propaganda propels us – ostrich feathers."
Answer: Riff-Raff 

Brecht - The Exception and The Rule, 1930

"When the innocent are murdered
The judges gather round their corpses and condemn them.
At the grave of the murdered
All their rights are murdered.
The words of the tribunal
Fall like the shadow of a knife
And the knife, alas, is sufficient.
What need, afterward, of a verdict?
Overhead fly the vultures and whither?"

Then I pronounce the verdict. The Court regards it as proven that the Coolie approached his master not with a stone but with a water flask. But even when this is granted, it is more credible that the Coolie wished to kill his master with the flask than that he wished to give him something to drink. The carrier belonged to a class which indeed has motive to feel itself handicapped…The absence of police and laws made it possible for his employee to seize his share of the water – nay, encouraged him to do so. The accused acted, therefore, in justifiable self-defence – it being a matter of indifference whether he was threatened or must feel himself threatened. In the circumstances he had to feel himself threatened. The accused is therefore acquitted. The plea of the carrier’s widow is dismissed.

--

Where is the politician who will own up to the painful complexity of the problem and acknowledge the widespread fear of crime committed by young black males? This does not mean that raw racism has disappeared, and some judgments are not the product of invidious stereotyping. It does mean, though, that the public knows young black males commit a disproportionate amount of crime. In New York City, blacks make up a quarter of the population, yet they represent 78 percent of all shooting suspects — almost all of them young men. We know them from the nightly news.


Those statistics represent the justification for New York City’s controversial stop-and-frisk program, which amounts to racial profiling writ large. After all, if young black males are your shooters, then it ought to be young black males whom the police stop and frisk. Still, common sense and common decency, not to mention the law, insist on other variables such as suspicious behavior. Even still, race is a factor, without a doubt. It would be senseless for the police to be stopping Danish tourists in Times Square just to make the statistics look good.

--


Even if it’s not very stange, find it estranging
Even if it’s usual, find it hard to explain
What here is common should astonish you
What here’s the rule, recognize as an abuse
And where you have recognized an abuse
Provide a remedy!"

The Blog Driver's Waltz - 6 Things I love About Canada

The last days of June. Rain and Sun. The winds speak of High Summer. I look out from the Laurier Avenue Bridge over the limpid waters of the canal, the bustling of festival goers, and towering above them all, the bastion of Peace, Order, Good Government, and Summer Sale Bonanzas. As our beloved Fête Nationale descends once more onto an unsuspecting drunkulation, I feel Geist emerging from the Platonic shadowverse into my heart of hearts. A song of rapture weaves itself in my soul. I am compelled through psycho-national forces to enumerate six things in my that I love about this glorious country of ours.

What I love About Canada – A List in Six Acts

The Great Bear Council. Canada is a country made up of diverse nations. The English, the French, the Natives, the Inuk, and of course, the flesh-eating Bear People. In what other country can one see the antagonisms of all of these different interests (some of them, I may add, hostile to the state) represented within the same Parliamentary framework? Founded in 1897 as a chamber of “sober second mauling”, the Great Bear council is the third level of our tri-cameral legislative system. Bear members, (or “GRAKHWAGS!” in traditional appellation) are elected once every spring to modify legislation, mostly through ripping and biting. The Council has the right to send legislation back through the Senate and the House if the bears can be successfully tranquilized and/or distracted by traditional pots of “The Queen’s Honey”. Recent corruption scandals and questions as to its “modern relevance” have not tarnished the potency of this council due to its high level of attendance and severe culture of open-palmed slapping.

Prohibition. Canada has been lucky enough to have prohibition in full enforcement since the 1990’s, due to the national tragedy of the “Great Halifax Banana Crisis”, the less said of which, the better. Suffice it to say that Canadians, as a naturally temperate and sober people, have never felt the need to consume alcohol as much as other more belligerent nations such as Fiji or the Great Mughal. In fact, the hatred of beer in particular is one of the defining characteristics of the Canadian national identity. “We love our ice!,” screams a popular tv commercial, “we love our hail, our freezing algae filled waters, we love our great Canadian Juice!”. Incidentally, our national juice, Crabapple Tabernoutine, is starting to gain ground in American States, and is available for purchase at most Burger Kings north of the Mason-Dixon.

The Goon-Lag System. Another great thing about Canada is our intolerance of goony people. Canada, like everybody else, hates awkward quiet people who are probably nice on the inside. But unlike most nations (such as our not so clever neighbor to the South…French Guiana), Canada is not afraid to learn from history’s most dismal mistakes. Recently our Government, headed by the Preservative Party of Canada, has enacted the National Goon-Lag Bill, modeled of the Soviet Gulag. This new disciplinary measure allows the Canadian government to legally detain “goony” people (defined as anybody who is “weird, awkward, listens to ICP, stares too long without talking at a party etc.”) for an indefinite and itchy period of time in a dismal looking detainment camp (or as it’s known in Canada, a Chesterfield). These goons are then put to work on National Infrastructure projects, such as the Beaver Lumber Memorial for Lost Toonies.

Universal Elf-Care. Little-known fact for my American friends – in Canada, we provide free Elf-Care for all elves, goblins, nixes, brownies, pixies, dryads, djinni and little people. Unfortunately the system does not cover leprechauns due to a loophole in the EU’s controversial Pot ‘o Gold Act 2012.

Canucko-Realism. The official aesthetic doctrine of the Canadian peoples, best exemplified by the output of our propaganda organ the “National Film Board”. Canadian art of whatever medium must ALWAYS follow the criteria of:

• "Red" and "Green" must appear at least once in the work (either as concept, actor, colour, color, through emotional symbology, or as duct tape art)
• Creaky, disproportionately loud footstep and floorboard sound effects 
• Comedy must not incite laughter by any means
• Death must occur
• French characters must be cats
• Wheat must occur
• English characters must be dogs
• No swearing in Quebecois unless it is directed to a prostitute (or as they are called in Canada, a Chesterfield)

Shadow-Bureaucracy. Just like any other non-fascist (or is it "un-fascist"?) bastion of freedom, Canada’s government comprises a rather  burdensome and unfriendly bureaucratic system. However, Canadian policy realized early on that this was super SUS. Not to mention absolutely WTF in some important capacities. Therefore, in Canada, we have developed a semi-legal but nonetheless entirely recognized and formal “shadow bureaucracy”. For every civil servant that is hired, another member is recruited for the shadow bureaucracy based on an exact opposite transposition of the original person’s CV. So whereas the original applicant may be a “male Masters of Public Administration with experience in international development”, the Shadow Bureaucracy applicant would have to be a “five-to-seven headed hydra with a taste for tadpole flesh.” While the Canadian Government is known for its benefits, pension, and job-security, the Shadow Bureaucracy actually costs money to join, is liable to irrational job cuts, and ends careers of long-time employees with a trip to the Guillotine (or as it’s called in Canada, a Chesterfield).

Ottawa Festival Season (A Chanson in She-Minor)

In Ottawa down by the river
There's a season for every receptacle:
One for hunting of deer,
One for chugging of beer,
And there's even a season for festivals!

Yes, even a season for festivals!
They call it the "festival season"
And the sum of its content
Is more wished for than wanted
(If that statement aligns with good reason).

Let me clarify: here one can see
All the subcultures out in full armament
And though different in taste
They have one common base,
Namely love for loud aural bombardament.

Nor is this just strictly for young'uns;
One can see large contingents of ladies
In their baby boom larking
Scanning widely for parking
And their youth (which they lost in the 80's).

As for flavour, the tastes vary wildly:
Some like "blues", some like "folk", some like "rib"...
But however inspired
There are two things required
For all fests: some wet-naps and a bib.

Though the festival names are all lame
The music is far from the lamest:
Bluesfest booked the Wu-Tang,
K. Lamar's in that folk thang;
They say Riff-Raff is hitting up chamb-fest.

But the cherry on top of the pie
Is that wonderful piece de resist...
Our big celebration
For the birth of the nation
Canada Day! (...or St. Jean Baptiste!)

Ah what an amazing four months!
To see them pass by is a bummer.
All the singers done singing!
All the bongers done binging!
Do you remember when that was called "summer"?

I remember when that was called "summer",
But no need for nostalgia or mourning!
We'll preserve it forever
Without need for a sever
Thanks to Instagram -- and global warming!