I have been working on identifying a logical fallacy in a current trope of the right. It has elements of tu quoque and ad hominem but is not entirely either. I notice it most often in discussions of class. When you identify any form of class oppression, the right accuses you of causing "class war," when of course they are already waging class war and just want class surrender. It also comes up in discussions of race: if you point out something that whites are doing that is racist (or that the religious are doing that is bigoted, etc), the right responds that you are racist against white people. It even occurs in anti-war activism: if you work to stop US involvemement in any war, you are said to be the cause of war through your lack of loyalty. So they are conflating criticism of the wrong with the creation of it - if you point out anything the right is doing wrong, you are actually the cause. And naturally, this is an excellent tactic for shutting up dissenters. It really echoes a line we used as children: "I know you are but what am I?" In Latin this would be "vos es is quoniam vos narro ego sum" which is "you are it because you say I am" so I am dubbing it the "You're it" or Vos Es fallacy.

Yes, conservatives as a whole can now be included with those so divorced from reality that we scientifically define them as "whackos."

Alright, maybe we always could, but I seem to remember a time when conservatives explained their positions as emanating from their values, not from a utter disregard from the facts. Throughout the sixties, they seemed to be honest about the fact that they were the party of the rich, the party of segregation, the party of xist absolutism.

Now, in an attempt to paint their actions as beneficial to all levels of society, they use their corporate media to delude all the middle-class-and-under dupes and class traitors into believing a wide array of false facts, biased studies, glib talking points, and specious equations.

The most current campaign of delusion of course is the desperate attempt to defend supply side economics as "fiscally responsible" instead of the wholesale rape that it is. I hear and see economists (and not always actual economists with degrees - keeping in mind that at best economics as an academic discipline falls somewhat below astrology and tarot cards for intellectual rigor - but instead "consultants") on every news channel and in every paper, even the so-called liberals ones, lambasting the administration for not knowing that tax cuts increase revenues.

Oh we all get the theory. Cut tax generated income to the government and individuals and businesses will use the extra capital to stimulate the economy so much that revenues will not only make up the lost portion of taxes but exceed them thus lowering the deficit and subsequently the debt. The problem is it has never worked. Not only has it led to increased debt (true, due in part to massive spending on the part of funseekers like Reagan and Bush 1 & 2), but it has not even stimulated the economy in a sustained way. Every time it has been tried, it has led to boom and bust. Ad when the reverse is done - a tax raise, particularly a progressive one - it has led to long sustained growth in the economy.

Tax and spend liberals? BS. What we have are Borrow and Spend conservatives. Their administrations have consistently spent far more more than liberal ones, and they do it primarily through borrowing. And who profits from the interest on those debts? Not the school teachers or garbage collectors or nurses or even software programmers or doctors. Filthy rich people profit.

But whackos don't want facts to get in the way of their theory. But then many conservatives aren't really whackos. At least not the ones with multi-million dollar incomes. They are just clever cats who have kept the same game going for a century of making themselves ever richer and more powerful at the expense of every one below them. But anyone making less than, say, seven figures who still calls himself a conservative. Who screams, "Get government off Sam Walton's back!" That's a whacko.

Lately I have been obsessed with finding Jack Hirschman's book Lyripol which was in the City Lights Pocket Poets series but has gone out of print. I remember I used to see it years ago in bookstores all the time before I was into his work. Now I can't find it anywhere except online for about $15 plus $5 shipping. I recently acquired his more current books, Front Lines and All That's Left. But I am still itching for Lyripol for my collection.

I saw Jack read at Bird and Beckett in Glen Park a while back. He was doing poems from a new small press collection, Look A Hear (which I did not have the cash to buy). These are jazz poems, and that night he read to musical accompaniment. For the first couple of poems, I was not hearing the words and music mesh in any particular way, and then he seemed to hit his stride and really rhythmically played off the music.

A lot of people have read to jazz over the past century, some nail it, some don't. Kerouac, who goes from being hip to hip-to-hate in many shallow people's minds, nails it very naturally. Oddly, Langston Hughes, despite working with Charlie Mingus, has a very stiff and stilted reading style in his recordings. Amiri Baraka on the other hand is amazing. I have a recording of him doing some sections from his Why's, Wise with Grachan Moncur that just soars.

Roy : I’ve done … questionable things.

Tyrell : Also extraordinary things. Revel in your time.

Roy : Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn’t let you into heaven for

As President Truman said, we must cut down on the cost of living. Jack Kerouac added, I am poor, so everything belongs to me.

The heat wave managed to kill off several of my herbs (in their entirety) as well as numerous sprouts of beets, radishes, cucumber, and cantaloupe. A number of them came through ok, and we'll be doing second and third plantings of each of those thru the year anyway.

I have been looking into the Mittleider raised box method of gardening, but I have made a discovery. It is only for wealthy yuppies. 70 board feet of redwood? 2 cubic yards of perlite? We're talking at least $3k for just one box! I am growing vegetables to save money, not because I am a rich dilettante who needs a hobby. I'd like to know if anyone has found cheaper ways of doing this. As a renter, a box is ideal since what little ground our place has cannot be torn up by a garden. And don't say look for free lumber on craigslist. I do, it takes a long time, and it's almost impossible to find the dimensions and materials for free needed for a box.

Sadly, I had to miss the premiere of "Watch Horror Movies" last night. I really wanted to see this Bob Wilkins documentary and meet the producer (who has ignored my email requests for an interview). But poverty sucks. We might have been able to scrape together the 10 bucks each admission, but no way could we have done BART fare or gas and toll on top of it. No one I know believes our finances are that bad. But things will soon get this bad for everybody.

Charlon Heston, RIP

By Steve Vertlieb (Monster Historian Suprema)

He was a star in the greatest sense of the word. There was never a word or a hint of scandal about his personal life. He led his life with both respect for his craft, and dignity as a human being. Whether you agreed with his political views or not (personally, I did not) you could not help but admire the man. He loved acting, and was dedicated to his work. He was a consummate professional who took his art seriously, and never compromised either his work or his integrity. His was a larger than life persona that, sadly, no longer exists in today's crass, superficial society. The face...the voice...the commanding presence can never be erased from memory. Like Richard Widmark before him, his death leaves a tremendous void that will never be filled. He was the personification of a "star."

Whether bringing giants of history to vivid life and memory... such as Moses in "The Ten Commandments," Ben Hur in Willie Wyler's masterpiece of the same name, or El Cid in that magnificent recreation of Spain's greatest hero...or playing an Hispanic attorney in Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" and the boss of the circus troupe in "The Greatest Show On Earth," not to mention the courageous astronaut in the much imitated "Planet of the Apes"... he brought the flickering image on the motion picture screen to vivid, spectacular life.

He was one of a kind. Even in torturous decline with the dreaded Alzheimer's Disease robbing him of his will, memory, and speech, he passed privately with quiet heroism. He had enormous respect for fellow artists, directors, musicians and technicians and always spoke with ultimate respect and admiration for co-creators such as Cecil B. DeMille, Orson Welles (whom he persuaded Universal to hire as a director on "Touch of Evil"), William Wyler and Miklos Rozsa. We will not see his like again. Sleep well, Mr. Heston.

In The Third Man, Harry Lime peered down from the top of a Ferris wheel at the dotlike people below, and asked who would really care if one of those dots were to stop moving.

As we get closer to the day everything shuts down, I think of all the things I will miss. Today, it was just a simple delicious glass of seltzer with ice and a wedge of lime. I wonder if there'll still be anarchist book fairs when anarchy reigns? I don't mean to be ironic; it's a legitimate question. I did enjoy the bookfair today, as I always do. But lately I dig Frisco the way I used to...with disaffiliation. Michael C. Ford is still the best unknown poet in America.

Most humans are just a tangle of aggressions and territoriality. Standard morality does not apply to them or their preservation. Like paramecia, they float through the soup of existence, consuming and excreting without any higher life processes. They just don't rate. I'd like to be proven wrong, but after years of waiting, I don't think that's going to happen. If I could find one intelligent thought, I would spare the city. But I haven't. So I'll use my next 25 cents to call in the air strike.