This song blows me away every time I hear it. There is a superb overlap of horror story and commentary on Los Angeles despair and decadence throughout. The song also has some of the best instrumental guitar riffs of all time.

LA has always been a Venus Fly-Trap for dreamers, a town where waiters and bar-staff dream of a break into film, music, modelling, fame, etc. Most end up on the fringes, never leaving, never admitting that their dream is never going to be fulfilled. It is a city of living ghosts.

The song begins with a weary traveller driving along a desert road and coming upon a mysterious hotel in the night. He isn’t planning to go there – he is passing through on route elsewhere.  

A girl leads him to his motel / hotel room by candlelight, and he hears voices whispering from the rooms on the corridor. The voices welcome the newcomer, and praising the hotel establishment.

The narrator is instantly infatuated with the girl, a reflection of the American Dream, or a ghostly apparition. The Hotel microcosm of the US state is reminiscent of The Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s novel, The Shining, issued in the same year. The narrator notices that the girl has lots of admirers and boyfriends and drives a Mercedes-Benz, probably a gift from someone she has seduced. The boys seem sad and dance the night away, torn between remembering where they came from and trying to abandon their past.

The narrator calls room service and asks for wine, only to be told that the label he has ordered hasn’t been served since 1969, the time when the sixties dream of free love perished, the very instant of time the Hotel California seems trapped by.

The traveller is freaked out by the sensual decadence of the Hotel, with its mirrored ceilings, and constant supply of ‘pink champagne’. He sees the dining facilities where the meat the hotel guest’s stab at with their knives refuses to die no matter how much they cut into it. The image is of futility and self-harm, a constant attempt to progress with getting into the acting, singing world, but ending up no nearer than ever before. California, (hotel, state, and mind-set) becomes a Limbo, a trap.

The narrator tries to get out of the hotel but a doorman prevents him. He is told that while he can ‘check out’, he will never be able to actually leave. The indication is that even death is not the end at the Hotel – its haunted decadence and broken dreams are pinned there forever.

Arthur Chappell

The month of January quietly implores everyone to set goals and to, by all means, broadcast our intentions to friends, foes, and families via Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc.,.This basically ensures that if we fail to reach our objective(s), we’ll do it in a spectacular fashion and will indirectly provide the fodder for office gossip that our coworkers so desperately need. How nice.This will surely be just like an episode of The Office except it’ll be in our own lives-Hurray!!!

There is nothing more lame than the average, run-of-the-mill New Year’s Resolutions that everyone sees on the front page of MSN.com, CNN or the other websites that the common rabble seem to flock to. These lists will typically include perky items such as: Organize your closet in 10 easy steps, New tax tips for 2010, Beef up your 401K, and of course, Lose 10 pounds in 30 days. I feel sorry for the people that are compelled to write this sort of material regularly-they’re basically advertising to the world how pathetic and unimaginative they really are.

I fiercely hate the idea that one has to be practical all the time, engaged in some profitable endeavor or another.   I realize that this is attributed to our Puritan heritage but nevertheless this urge to be eternally occupied ultimately becomes counterprductive. A practical approach is ideal for about 60-70% of the time, beyond that a person slowly de-evolves into a robot from the 1950s (Think: Lost in Space). Nobody wants that.

I propose that for the New Year people should do the things that they’ve wanted to do for a while but haven’t been able to because of the Recession, the kids, the pesky inlaws or the IRS. These activities will typically be highly impractical, somewhat wasteful even and may even draw envious looks from the neighbors. But who cares, right?! One cannot put a pricetag on the value of a Soul rejuvenated.

Here then, without further ado, is my 10 Things To Do In 2010:

1. Make a habit of visiting The Cheesecake Factory (or another similarly decadent establishment) on a biweekly basis. The objective here is to ensure that the employees know you by name after a few weeks of frequenting the establishment(s). Sort of like Norm from Cheers. If you can manage a similar treatment then go ahead and pat yourself on the back and proceed to number 2. You are well on your way to Enlightenment and infinite Happiness.

2. Purchase that pair of Hi-Fi headphones that you’ve wanted since forever. Go ahead and order up a pair of AKG K271 headphones-the wallet will take a pretty heavy hit to the tune of $280 but you will never regret it. Proceed to insert Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon into the cd player, plug in the new headphones and relax on the trusty old beanbag. You will never be the same.

3. Do more curls. That’s right, more curls. It seems fashionable now to avoid direct excercise for the upper arms. When did this happen? We are now being implored to perform squats on top of a bosu ball?! This is beyond ridiculous. Let us go back to doing endless sets for the biceps and triceps. I’m talking about 15 sets for each, where you continue to feel sore a week later. You can almost see yourself in Gold’s Gym during the 70s. Arnold’s there, Louie’s there, so is Ken and Robbie-the whole gang is there, egging you on to greater and greater feats of strength.This is decadence for the Gym Rat. Embrace the pain and proceed to number 4.

4. Learn a musical instrument. Do it the fun way, though. For some reason old-fashioned music teachers feel compelled to burden their students with an excessive emphasis on sight-reading mastery. This is usually acceptable for the young acolyte but becomes especially challenging for an absent-minded and carefree 20-year old. I taught myself, with a great amount of difficulty, how to sight-read but it remains a challenge for me to this day. Thankfully software exists which makes learning a musical instrument a much more enjoyable experience. The software offerings from eMedia for guitar and piano have proved especially popular. Play along to Kumbaya and take the bus to number 5.

5. Learn how to write legibly with your Left Hand (or Right Hand, if left-handed). This sounds pretty crazy, huh? There is a reason to the madness, however. I read an article some months ago which suggested that new brain cells were activated when a person habitually used the less dominant appendages in the more dominant manner (the instinctive approach). I had a chance to apply this theory several years ago-too bad that I was unaware of the research back then. Anyways, after playing a gig I was dutifully loading up my 4×12 guitar cabinets when, through a moment of carelessness I dropped a cabinet on my right hand. Boy did that smart! I avoided any serious injury but was unable to affect a strong grip for several weeks. This accident forced me to practice my penmanship, left-handed. After much effort a person could almost decipher my writing even though it bore a stronger resemblance to Mayan pictographs. So we cross the “t”s, dot the “i”s and turn the page to number 6.

6. Drink imported beer. Yes, yes, I know, the exchange rate for the dollar versus the euro and the pound does not favor us Continentals. One could almost hear a collective sigh go up among the touristy crowd. So what do we do? We put a case of Heineken in the icebox, we slowly cook several steaks  and we enjoy the retro intensity from Lee Hazlewood’s music on the ipod or cd player. Recommended beers: Labatt Blue, Foster’s, Amstel, Beck’s, Molson Ice, Sapporo and Grolsch. With beer in hand we stumble on to number 7.

7. Learn how fix a flat tire. Don’t think it’ll ever happen to you? Trust me, it will, and in the most embarassing places, too. I once got a flat in the parking lot of an Adult Bookstore at like 4 am (I was delivering newspapers then). Luckily I was able to change the flat but not before some fellow employees drove by and added the appropriate wolf whistles. I never heard the end of that one. Women are lucky in this regard because they can usually count on a helpful Samaritan to offer his assistance. But if you’re a guy you’re expected to rehabilitate your stranded vehicle if it becomes inoperable due to minor mechanical problems, the weather, or neglect .

8. Read a book, you neanderthal. Does anyone read anymore?! “Let’s look it up in Wikipedia!” I’ve heard this statement more than I care to admit. I reply that whenever anyone uses Wikipedia God kills a kitten. That probably makes me an awful crank, but it cannot be helped.  Reading helps a person to impose order on the thought process and it is most helpful in attaining Wisdom-this cannot be over-emphasized. The books that I am currently reading and wholeheartedly recommend are: The World of Yesterday-Stefan Zweig, A Book of One’s Own People and Their Diaries-Thomas Mallon and The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich-William Shirer.

9.  Learn a foreign language. We Americans have it so easy. Imagine what travel would be like if all the states had their own language! That’s how it is in Europe. In Sweden you’re considered a barbarian if you speak less than 5 languages. Imagine that…I use the Rosetta Stone software to try my hand at the German language and the Russian, occasionally. I find this activity very enjoyable-I know that I’ll never speak it like a native but if I can ask where the bathroom is and how much for a pint of beer then I’ll deem my lessons a success.

10. Listen to music that you would never,EVER listen to in a million years. I recently listened to some pieces by Arnold Schoenberg-the father of atonal music.It basically sounded as if someone had thrown several cats inside a piano for half an hour. That really is not a fair assessment-it took me the better part of a few days before I could pick out a few sections that I found enjoyable. Why listen to music that we would otherwise find objectionable? Apparently, after the age of 30 most adults cease to enjoy any new music and instead continually fall back on their favorites. This remanins true IF a person doesn not consciously attempt to listen to new music, to challenge his ears. I have often thought about this theory and must admit that it terrifies me. The idea that I can lose the ability to enjoy new music is very chilling.

So there you have it-a good mix of decadence and practical application. Go forth and prosper!

Maybe they do innocent things like that. It’s hard to tell. There a lot of other innocent or even positive-looking things they are responsible for. Their “Faces Of Diversity Awards” “salute the diversity of the restaurant-industry workforce.” They offer help for budding restauranteurs, and offer career building programs to “provide real-world educational opportunities” to high school students. This stuff, plus a lot of rhetoric about how “the American Dream often begins in a restaurant,” paints the NRA to be a scrappy gang of hash-slinging philanthropists, indeed “cornerstones of their communities.”

But just under the surface, not even that far, indeed plainly and openly in their public-facing website, we  find the real purpose of the National Restaurant Association: lobbying. A flash-based interactive graphic called “The Regulated Restaurant” forms part of their sales pitch for potential new members. They want to sell these restaurant owners on the upside of writing out a check to an organization that won’t, in return, ship them crates of sliced pickles, fresh arugula, or paper napkins. But their NRA dues aren’t just money down the drain, they’re an important investment.

In “The Regulated Restaurant,” we are wooed with a blueprint-style layout of a typical restaurant, complete with bar, dining room, kitchen and office, all places where government regulation threaten the profitability of the food service industry, from liquor taxes to food safety regulations that mandate food allergy warnings and nutrition information. The NRA’s staff of over two hundred lobbyists are fighting everyday like drunken wolverines to defeat these threatening policies.

Of course, this only inludes things like barstools, booths, counters, and ovens. The other thing included in this list of foodservice necessaries is staff, just another kind of expensive furniture to the NRA, no different than a banquet table or desert cart. They’re troublesome pieces of furniture though, who want things like paid sick-leave and health insurance. The NRA is fighting against laws that might force them to provide such basics to the, by their own count, 12.8 millions Americans employed in their industry. They are also fighting against laws that might make it easier for employees to organize and form unions, saving NRA members from potentially even worse problems further down the road.

The Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org identifies the NRA as a “heavy hitter,” their coinage for the 100 biggest lobbying spenders at the federal level since 1989. They’ve already spent over $300,000 in this election cycle, and typically give about three quarters of their contributions to Republican candidates. They are an organization whose members rake in over $600 billion per year, according to their own propaganda. And they do this on the backs of American waiters, waitresses, and busboys, otherwise known as “tipped workers” who, in most states, are paid at a minimum wage less than half that of other industries.

I submit then that Herman Cain, current frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, is a former lobbyist. Worse, he is a former superlobbyist, previously the head of an organization of over 750 men and women whose job is to bribe and corrupt public officials for private profit, one of the 100 biggest such organizations of the last twenty years. Furthermore, these lobbyists are at the service of an industry that exploits millions of the poorest Americans by paying them less than minimum wage. They do this all entirely on the right side oof the law and the wrong side of moraity and common decency. By using corporate money to subvert the democratic process, they now look to have a fair chance of putting their former fearless leader, pizza magnate and harasseur, Herman Cain, in the highest office in the country.

Maybe the NRA are right. Maybe “the American Dream…begins in a restaurant.” In 2012, a simple pizza tycoon and superlobbyist from the heartland may end up as the most corrupt American official in the history of the Republic, a truly inspiring American tale.

Beginning around the 1200’s the festival, and therefore the use of masks went through periods of being considered morally unlawful by the Catholic Church, especially during days considered as “holy”. At that time the church was in bed with the government and so if it was viewed as unlawful by the church it was subsequently deemed illegal by the government. The church in lieu of any semblance of integrity compromised and eventually their policies lead to a declaration that the months between Christmas and Shrove Tuesday be free for Venetian mask-attired decadence.

In other word the time between Christmas and Shrove Tuesday were a free for all to do and be whatever the people wanted. A get out of jail FREE card for orgiastic activities.

Over time this period became better known as Carnevale. A pre-Lent celebration meaning, “remove meat.”Although the literal meaning for years has related to the actual intake of meat during this period, it is speculated to actually mean “remove flesh” instead of meat. This in actuality would make more sense to the religious person who strives to walk by spirit and not by flesh. In biblical times the flesh was considered to be weak when a man succumbed to earthly desires such as sexual immorality or fornication.  Although The Festival Carnevale lost popularity as Venicetian cultural development and therefore production faltered during the Enlightenment period, it was officially reintroduced for the sake of tourism, in 1979.

The modern celebration of Carnevale in many ways is actually a convoluted version of the original festival. Morality and legal statute dictate that there is some tether to decorum for its modern day counterpart. Still, the festival has reinvigorated the art and craft of making Venetian masks. This phenomenon as mentioned earlier is world wide and certainly not limited to Venice Italy alone. Mardi Gras in New Orleans, La. Is widely known for Venetian mask and much of the ear markings of Carnevale or Carnevale can be seen and found there. Brazil’s Carnevale is in my opinion the most debauch of the worldwide festivals.

How could one go about making a mask? If authenticity and staying true to the time honored traditions is important than the method involves sculpting a form out of clay as a base for the mask. However, today many of the bases are made of plaster which can be poured onto a prepared face for a mask that is specifically contoured to YOUR face. This manner of mask making is more from fitting and therefore comfortable for the wearer. You may want to Google procedural directions on making a facial plaster cast. The mask themselves are however NOT made of plaster as this would be cumbersome and heavy. Most masks are made from papier-mâché, a sticky paste made from paper strips and starch or glue. This material is layered over the base cast, dries, and gets carefully removed to form the basic mask. The part that is fun and craft related is the decorating of the mask, where you have the opportunity to incorporate your personality into the mask itself. Careful though, if you are truly trying to hide, make sure your mask doesn’t have YOUR signature or too much of your distinctive personality added to it for fear others know who is behind the mask. If you are making mask simply for the sake of making mask or for distribution to others, then by all means go crazy! Paint designs in gold, silver, royal purple, sunny yellow, and other bright colors. Further decorations include sequins, silk ribbons, exotic bird feathers, faux fur, rhinestones, leather, gold charms, glitter, and any other outlandish trinkets.

You are sure to recognize Carnevale mask when you seen one. They are used by dance troupes, performance artist, and even in films such as “Eyes Wide Shut” with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Popular shapes include garish, hooked noses, black and white gingham check patterns, aka known as Harlequin pattern, and vivid and bright red, pursed lips. Wearing Venetian masks has spread to masquerade balls, Halloween as well as use in sub-cultural occurrences cultures i.e. swing clubs and sex parties/clubs.

Venetian mask were also used for other purposes originally. Of course as some of them were illicit but some were criminal as well, while even others were just personal, such as romantic encounters.

Venetian masks have become iconic symbols in modern day times featuring bright colors such as gold or silver and the use of complex decorations in the baroque style. Many designs of Venetian masks stem from Commedia dell’arte. They can be full-face masks (e.g. the bauta) or eye masks (e.g. the

The masks were traditionally worn with decorative beads matching in color much like Mardi Gras today.

Carnevale is also popular in many regions around the world, mostly where Roman Catholicism has taken root i.e. countries of Latin origin such as South, and Central America.

The evolution of this is Carnevale which started as a time for celebration and expression throughout the classes, as wearing masks hid any form of identity between social classes. During the 1970’s, the Italian government decided to bring back the history and culture of Venice, and sought to use the traditional Carnival as the centerpiece of their efforts. Today, approximately 30,000 visitors come to Venice each day for Carnivals.

References from Wikipedia and :

Harlequin or Arlecchino in Italian, Arlequin in French, and Arlequín in Spanish is the most popular of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian Commedia dell’arte and its descendant, the Harlequinade.

1. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary 
2. ^ harlequin – Definitions from Dictionary.com 
3. ^ a b c Grantham, B., Playing Commedia, A Training Guide to Commedia Techniques, Nick Hern Books, London, 2000
4. ^ a b c d Rudlin, J., Commedia dell’Arte, An actor’s handbook, Routledge, London, 1994

     As of today, there are no universally accepted definitions as to what this concept actually stands for; however, ethical consumerism can be vaguely defined as naïve people’s conscious strive to only purchase products and services, which are being unrelated to what these people consider to be the greatest evils of 21st century’s living – the pollution of natural environment, the exploitation of “developing” countries’ cheep labor by Western companies, and the utilization of cute animals for scientific experimentation. In their book “The Ethical Consumer”, Rob Harrison, Terry Newholm and Deirdre Shaw provide us with a better understanding as to what accounts for particularities of ethical consumers’ purchasing behavior: “Ethical purchasers have political, religious, spiritual, environmental, social and other motives for choosing one product over another… The one thing they have in common is that they are concerned with the effects that the purchasing choice has, not only on themselves, but also on the external world around them” (2005, p. 4). In other words, ethical consumers continue to engage with word’s economy, while denying the most fundamental principles, upon which economy’s functioning is being based, simply because the concept of economics and the concept of ethics are mutually exclusive. As John Roth had put it in his book “Ethics”: “Ethical consumerism is strongly associated with the introduction of morality into the otherwise amoral marketplace” (2005, p. 323). And, as we are all well aware of – if a particular political or socio-economic practice contradicts the objectively existing laws of nature, its conceptual premise can only be discussed within a context of an artificially created myth.

     In her article “Myth and Ethics in Business”, Aviva Geva makes a perfectly good point, while suggesting that ethical considerations have absolutely no place in market-based economy: “Business is expected to do whatever is necessary in order to succeed, and is not expected to be concerned with abstract morality. Business is a one-dimensional, purely profit-seeking enterprise. Profit is not just prioritized; it is elevated to the exclusion of all other interests” (2001, p. 585). By demanding that businesses should adjust their operating activities to the set of their obscure beliefs, ethical consumers reveal themselves as being not entirely normal, simply because it is only mentally deranged individuals who are being incapable of recognizing their own wishfully-based convictions as such that do not correspond to objective reality. The myth of ethical consumerism can be compared to the myth of Christianity – despite the fact that the majority of citizens in the West consider themselves Christians, they do not go about living by Jesus’ commandments, simply because of these commandments’ nonsensical essence. It is only mentally ill people who can be considered a true Christians, which actually explain the fact why Bible remains the most read book among the inmates of mental asylums. In the similar manner, the majority of self-proclaimed ethical consumers do not stick up to their own beliefs, while making purchases.

     In their book “Outsourcing and Offshoring in the 21st Century: a Socio-Economic Perspective”, Harbhajan Kehal and Varinder Singh reveal utterly illusive subtleties of ethical consumerism by pointing out to the fact that, the majority of seemingly dedicated proponents of this concept often act as if they could not care less about adjusting their purchasing choices to their openly proclaimed agenda of “saving the planet”: “This issue of ethical consumerism has captivated thinking in the corporate social responsibility field for some time, and survey after survey demonstrates consumer concern for a range of environmental and social factors in purchasing choices. However, the reality of ethical consumers is very different. Truly ethical consumers are very rare” (2006, p. 119). Why are the truly ethical consumers very rare? The answer to this question can also be used to explain why the true Christians are also comparatively rare –  as psychiatric statistics indicate, the number of psychologically inadequate individuals in Western societies rarely account for more then 2%-3%. In its turn, this explains why, for as long as the issue of ethical consumption is being concerned, Bible-thumpers often find themselves supporting their most unlikely allies – neo-Liberal “sophisticates”.

     In his article “Consumerism and Christian Ethics”, Kenneth Himes states: “Using a virtue ethic when discussing consumerism offers several benefits. It acknowledges how social valuations affect our ability to see, judge, and act substantively. Virtue language provides a way to understand how entrenched, habituated patterns of consumption became part of our normal world; it also makes the connection between these patterns and human flourishing” (2007, p. 141). Unfortunately, throughout article’s entirety, author remained utterly ignorant as to the fact that “human flourishing” can only be achieved if economy’s functioning is being solely concerned with creation of wealth and with people’s unrestricted ability to utilize it in the way they see fit, as opposed to such wealth’s distribution, and to say the least – with defining which consumerist activities shall be considered “ethical” and which shall not. Given the fact that many parallels can be drawn between the behavior of Christian fanatics and that of ethical consumers, it appears that the concept of ethical consumerism is not just a myth, but very dangerous myth. Let us explain this suggestion at length.

     What was the actual outcome of Christianity having attained an official status in the West? It is the fact that Christianity’s reign in Europe is now being referred to as the time of Dark Ages. Christianity could not “benefit” the humanity in any other way, but plunging it in never-ending religious wars – all because the strength of Christian fanatics’ belief in “morality”. Now – why up until recently, highly educated British professionals strived to immigrate to U.S.? This is because the “exerts on morality” in Britain’s governmental offices used to withhold up to 60% of these people’s salaries in taxes, so that newly arrived Pakistani immigrants would never experience hunger, while “celebrating diversity”. Why it is the matter of very short time, before America’s economy collapses? This is because the sheer strength of President Obama’s moral beliefs, which prompted him popularize the idea that this economy’s functioning should be based on essentially socialist (moral) principles. Every time when psychologically inadequate individuals succeed in convincing the rest of society’s members that there is nothing wrong with their intention to fuse “morality” and “ethics” with objectively existing socio-economic concepts, based on the principle of rationale, it inevitably results in chaos, destruction and death.

Nevertheless, if we assume that the idea of ethical consumption is being promoted by individuals who clearly lack marbles in their brain, then how was it possible for this concept to attain fully legitimate status in the West? For example, the reading of Tim Dieppe’s article “Exploding SRI Myths” leaves no doubt as to the fact that in recent years, the number of ethical consumers in Britain had increased rather substantially: “A report by market analysts, Key Note (‘Green & Ethical Consumer’, November 2008) estimates that ethical consumerism in the UK was worth £35.4 million in 2007. Between 2005 and 2007 (a period when environmental issues such as carbon footprints and recycling became more prominent) the food and drink and ethical finance sectors underwent the strongest growth” (2008, p. 1). The ultimate answer to this question can be formulated as follows: the increase in the number of ethical consumers in the West should be thought of yet another indication of the fact that, during the course of recent decades, the very practice of designing socio-economic, political and demographic policies in Western countries had ceased to correspond to the notion of sanity.

Nowadays, White citizens are being instilled with the complex of historical guilt, with the hawks of political correctness going as far as prompting Whites to think of euro-centric concept of technological and economic progress as being something necessarily evil, because it contradicts the state-sponsored policy of multiculturalism, based upon the premises of spirituality, environmental friendliness and low gender differentiation. Yet, Western nations’ current economic prosperity is nothing but a direct consequence of the fact that, during the course of 20th century, the pace of technological progress in the West has been gaining an exponential momentum; whereas, in Third World countries, native populations remained fully preoccupied with exploring their “spirituality”, by indulging in never-ending tribal warfare, in time free from making babies.

Given the fact that Western countries now take pride in turning multicultural, the very concept of technological, cultural and economic progress had to be discredited. This is exactly the reason why the descendants of those who had created and maintained the only technological civilization on the face of the Earth, are now being prompted to automatically associate their countries’ economic prosperity and the notion of conventional consumerism with a variety of social evils, This explains the fact that ethical consumers consist of overwhelmingly White citizens – it is namely they who hold public rallies against Wal-Mart’s expansion; against the practice of medicinal products being tested on animals, and against excessive amounts of cholesterol in hamburgers; whereas, ethnic consumers could not care less about tree-hugging, whale-saving and organic-coffee-drinking. Apparently, these people are being just too real to believe in nonsense, which is why they think of White “sophisticates” as to whom they really are – overindulged decadents, who think of ethics and morality in terms of some sort of an existential fetish, and who are being instilled with self-righteousness to such a degree that the apparent fallaciousness of their own suggestions remains completely sealed from them.

For example, the proponents of ethical consumption firmly believe that it was namely due to the process of Western countries’ industrialization in 20th century, that Earth’s natural environment had become irreversibly polluted. However, had these people studied the history, they would know that environmental situation in Europe three hundred years ago was much worse, as compared to what it is the case today. Contrary to what is being believed by today’s adherents of ethical consumerism – technological and economic progress does not destroy natural environment, but preserves it.

The same can be said about these people’s stance on what they perceive as the process of Western “imperialist” nations preventing “developing” countries from being able to realize their full economic potential. Had beret-wearing Liberal whackos traveled to Africa, they would know that African countries can be referred to as anything but “developing” – ever since these countries had liberated themselves from “White oppression”, they began rapidly regressing back into primeval savagery. Therefore, by operating in “developing” countries, Western companies provide locals with work – after all, working at Western-owned factory, while being paid $5 a day, is still better then venturing about in the constant search for eatable plants and bugs.

The specifics of ethical consumers’ racial identify are being actively downplayed by authors who discuss the phenomenon of ethical consumerism in their works. For example, in their article “Who are the Ethical Consumers?”, Roger Cowe and Simon Williams talk about ethical consumers as if they were completely unaware of what the concept of racial affiliation stands for: “The research shows that active consumers cross most socio-political boundaries. Party political affiliations do not define them; nor does social class; nor age nor gender. In general, the most active consumers are the most middle-class and middle-aged, but they also include many who are not in these categories” (2008, p. 2). Apparently, authors lacked intellectual honesty to admit that those “many” that could not possibly be suspected in being ethical consumers, consist of residents of ethnic ghettos, simply because these people do not even understand what is wrong with their practice of dumping garbage right in front of their houses. Yet, the buying power of representatives of racial minorities continues to increase rapidly, due to purely demographic reasons – one would only need to pay a little visit to just about any elementary school in America, Britain, Germany or France, in order to realize the full validity of this suggestion. Therefore – the existence of ethical consumers is a temporary phenomenon. And, temporality is a foremost characteristic of just about any artificially created myth. Once the decadent proponents of ethical consumption will realize themselves being turned into a racial minority in their own countries, their existential priorities will change rapidly – they will cease to be concerned with the “unethical business practices”, while being forced to learn how to cope up with their newly acquired status of second class citizens.

                                                Bibliography:

Cowe, R. & Williams, S. (2008). Who are the ethical consumers? [Internet]. The Co-Operative. Available from: http://www.goodwithmoney.co.uk/assets/Uploads/Documents/ethicalconsumerreport2000-part-1.pdf

Dieppe, T.  (2008). Exploding SRI myths. [Internet], Henderson Global Investors. Available from: http://www.henderson.com/content/sri/publications/other/articles/sri_myths_3.pdf

Geva, A. (2001). Myth and ethics in business. Business Ethics Quarterly, 11(4) October, pp. 575-597.

Harrison, R., Newholm, T. & Shaw, D. (2005). The ethical consumer. London, SAGE Publications.

Himes, K. (2007). Consumerism and Christian ethics. Theological Studies, 68 (1) March, pp. 132-153.

Perspective”, Kehal. H. & Singh, V. (2006). Outsourcing and offshoring in the 21st century: A socio-economic perspective. Melbourne, Idea Group Publishing.

Roth, J. (2005). Ethics. Pasadena, California, Salem Press.

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Image via Wikipedia (Colin Firth at the IIFA awards in 2007 where he was an MD for Oxfam)

Ben Chaplin’s Basil Hallward is the man charged with capturing Dorian’s good looks in a portrait which will be the central piece of artistic work at the young man’s expansive London home. This is where things become more intriguing. It soon becomes apparent that the painting is much more than just a pictorial representations of our ‘hero’ and, when Dorian abandons his good morals in favour of a more decadent existence, it appears on the face of it (his face anyway) that he has found the key to unlocking the fountain of youth and agelessness. Dorian, operating as Lord Henry’s existential protégé, proceeds to take advantage of his own explosive sex appeal, leaving a trail of destruction and broken hearts in his wake. His actions bring to mind the words of another legendary writer (Michael Jackson): “People always told me, be careful what you do, don’t go around breaking young girls’ hearts” (from Billie Jean). A morality tale which lacks real spark but is occasionally enjoyable. The acting is passable.

Image via Wikipedia (The Picture of Dorian Gray by Ivan Albright, 1943)

4/10 

Who teaches patience, compromise and fidelity today? Uttering marriage vows is nothing more than an act.

Relationships start with physical attraction (often considered lust) and die when things cool down. Many lovers do not allow love to grow; love needs time to grow.

The media (movies, news, talk shows, music, television, commercials and so on) is corrupting our society by its decadent influence, destroying any decent values that may have been taught.

The media’s goal is to convince everyone, especially women that they need to be “hot.”

Sex, Sex, Sex, strongly emphasized by the media is the mind programming process that is hurting everyone but most of us are too self-absorbed to do anything to STOP it.

Basic values taught in the home, is a thing of the past. We (especially the young and women) take our cues from the corrupt media, which tries to have everyone believe nothing is important but themselves.

There is way too much emphasis on, and exploitation of women in the media today. Everything is about sex, beauty and independence.  There is nothing wrong with pushing equality in the work place and in earnings, but that is not the subject here.

The various television series, “Sex in the City,” “Desperate Housewives,” “The Real Desperate Housewives,” “Army wives, to name only a few;” most movies showing couples who just met getting down to sex immediately and Soap Operas, all having women sleeping and cheating with everyone, are all evidence of this media corruption and brainwashing.

The media has gotten so brave, and so convinced that we are all so brainwashed, that it is now pushing the limits by allowing a decadent commercial to be shown on regular television viewing time, pushing a small device that fits on the tip of a woman’s finger specifically for the use of self gratification?

Our society is being heavily poisoned and exploited by this corruption.  Women are targeted more than men because they are vulnerable.  There is heavy emphasis on women to be all godly beautiful and “sexy.”

These are just a very few examples of the decadence by the media that is brainwashing mostly women today.   

Unfortunately, I think this it is a view that most people choose not to realize, think about or admit.

Hummm, I wonder why there is so much infidelity?  The bottom line is the media is corrupting our society by its decadent influence, mostly for money, but also as a result of extreme liberalism today.  Fidelity can not survive when people are constantly being brainwashed against it.

This kind of (formerly curious) negative attitude was not always the historical case, however, as will be later discussed. So, more immediately, the highly interesting and complex question is being here posed: When will they, those having this observed inferiority complex, have finally arrived at their assumed terrene nirvana (of a decadently Europeanized “Weimar Republic” created in the New World)?

Significantly, this basically concerns when it may finally occur to them, if ever, that this nation’s own domestic culture and civilization may someday be thought of as at least equal to that which is now said, one assumes, to greatly exist in the Old World. (Europe, to the effete and degenerate part of the upper class, easily has more liberated and greatly enlightened attitudes toward sex, pornography, social experimentation, collectivism especially, etc.)

Or, will that supposed “day” never truly come in the (radically defective) minds of those who always will necessarily think, more or less, that the proverbial grass is surely greener always on the other side.

Perhaps, moreover, no national outstanding achievements or incredible accomplishments in, say, the arts may ever substantively or substantially reach, to them, the then assumed exalted level regularly expected as, thus, mainly coming from Europe, the superior locus of all that remains or becomes truly great in terms of culture and/or civilization (in their ever pre-prejudiced minds).

And yet, the aforementioned attitude, within this nation’s history, is still relatively recent concerning, at the least, the massive disaffection of most of the upper class in this country. Previously, it had only or normally been a relatively tiny minority of expatriot types who had sought relief by leaving these shores for an improved vision of what they thought they needed or, perhaps, desired to so successfully find. What, nonetheless, does the older historical record reveal, in the following very brief survey, given merely to be just illustrative and suggestive?

Some American artists in the Colonial Era and after became major international successes, meaning in Europe; but, this was not at all, however, any dramatic sign of presumed alienation on any grand scale; in the 19th century, there were, it is true, some unique writers such as Henry James who, for instance, said that he could not withstand his country because it lacked a sense of tragedy [though his earlier years here had covered the time of the War Between the States, though presumably not tragic even for James with his quite ultra-refined tastes]. As is known, he became, consequently, a naturalized British subject.

After World War I, as yet another limited example for an era, there occurred what was called the “Lost Generation” of Americans, such as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and many others among them, who turned up usually in Paris. Although born in Missouri, Eliot, of course, had sought his particular form of cultural solace and revelation in England and, thus, became a naturalized British subject.

But, as was noted correctly in the first paragraph of this article, various arbiters of American tastes were not, in fact, predominantly alienated from these shores nor predisposed to eagerly look elsewhere for varieties of cultural or civilizational enlightenment. And, most of this nation’s history, in general, proves this point most easily.

The Puritans, for instance, pertaining to very early American history, sought to come to the New World, as it used to be called, to found, according to John Winthrop, the forever shining “City upon a Hill” (1630) that would, supposedly, act as a light to wondrously attract the interest and admiration of the rest of the civilized world in a spiritual sense.

The majority of the American revolutionaries, later, thought that, indeed, a New Order of the Ages (see the Latin inscription noting this on the back of a $1 bill) had surely begun in America to stimulate all valuable human achievement ever after on this planet, especially for political enlightenment purposes. The American Revolution, moreover, has been said to have inspired the French Revolution of 1789 and various other revolutions, throughout the 19th century, in Latin America and, of course, elsewhere.

In the early to mid 19th century, the “imperialistic” concept and slogan of Manifest Destiny kept being enlarged further and further, meaning that the USA simply had to “naturally” expand its own known, superior, democratic culture and civilization from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, hopefully, to include someday or somehow all of Canada and Mexico, of course. The progressive march of America across the North American continent was held synonymous with the true progress of democracy at home and, by a nationalistic expression in such thought, around, in effect, the entire world. Americanism and progressivism in thought, therefore, were then widely held to, basically speaking, be just entirely synonymous.

Many of the mid to late 19th century American filibuster adventurers, e.g., going into Latin America, as a seemingly logical extension of the preceding thinking, saw then no actually necessary limits to this understanding of an expansive and self-justifying destiny covering the whole Western hemisphere itself. Thus, in the early 20th century, as simply a part of the “logical” culmination of such an attitude, there was in firm empirical existence the Panama Canal Zone, perceived as permanently sovereign American soil, to be kept there for protecting, of course, the American-built canal by that same name.

However, the aforementioned kind of rather nasty disaffection and, yes, massive alienation that has, in fact, occurred is not that unusual within the recorded history and context of the modern era. In the 18th and into the early 19th century, the majority of the Spanish elite, meaning primarily the aristocracy, had become extremely Francophile in their sympathies, viewpoints, and general attitudes, so much so that they had become divided against the common people who generally held to nationalistic feelings. Things French were thought, by definition, to be so genuinely much better, to be, in short, truly enlightened, correct, reasonable, and rational.

When the Napoleonic conquerors had, in fact, arrived, in the very early 19th century, the bulk of the aristocrats then greeted them as supposedly heroic spirits who were simply and fortunately liberating their benighted country from its, as they perceived it, vile sluggishness and backwards, reactionary orientation and nature as to age-old Spanish cultural characteristics and domestic social thought.

Thus, there are certain sure parallels in history that can be clearly cited, to good effect, concerning how alienated, upper-class, effete people can come to nihilistically detest and decisively reject the bulk of the cultural and social realities, the national patrimony; these are, thus, so overtly represented by their own disvalued, disrespected, and, yes, quite thoroughly detested countrymen, meaning the broad population base of their dishonored native land.

So, this article, in reiteration, pushes fast forward a problematic question that may not, perhaps, ever be really answered. Alienation has truly been its own kind of sordid tautology of self-justification and self-serving rationalization, though rarely, if ever, recognized as such by the enlightened snobs, by the nattering nabobs of negativism, as was once, in fact, so keenly and correctly said. The self-inflicted inferiority complex, inherent within the decayed intellects of these despicable and contemptible moral cretins, will forever keep them (sufficiently and dedicatedly) alienated from their detested country, from the land of their birth.

And yet, … and yet, the vast majority will never seek to leave these cursed shores, presumably because they are confirmed masochists as well as being slimy and vile cultural traitors. [The author of this article, for those interested readers, has posted an earlier one fully exploding, refuting easily, the alienation thesis as supposedly being only an intellectual and cultural possession of the ideological Left.]

The major irony to all of the above considerations , however, is that when the supposed utopia arrives, its many possessors actually, on the whole, do seriously hate it; the great 20th century philosopher, Leo Strauss, had tried, mostly uselessly, to urgently warn people against the false ideal of a universalization of an idealized Weimar Republic; because with it, necessarily and automatically, comes its enemies who will prove much tougher and tenacious than the deconstructionist or relativistic supporters of any moral chaos conceivable.

Today, the crescive Moslem fanatics, as, e.g., in Holland, analogously do take the place of the Nazis as virile and insistent opponents, dedicated enemies, of Weimarization in Europe or anywhere else. But, the Islamic community (subversively) insists, at the same time, that it does not wish to ever be a victim of discrimination or, of course, have any of its civil rights abused; it is as certain that if any European nation became an Islamic republic, on the other hand, the then true nature of this intolerant religious group’s protests would be, at last, revealed as being completely hypocritical and, as noted, subversive of free government, of all basic civil liberties and rights; their deceptive rhetoric, thus, needs much solid exposure.

Yet, the too willingly tolerant Europeans, meaning the majority, become then, increasingly, ideologically disarmed by those who so plead minority rights and seek protection, they say, against discrimination. Much has been and is and will be allowed to aggressively occur in Europe in the name of Islam, in the 21st century, which is no longer permitted at all if it would be done for the sake of promoting or much less carefully protecting Christianity; such is, interestingly, part of the aforementioned irony involved in all of this weird trans-cultural scenario sadly presaging the decline and fall of Western culture and its liberating civilization.

Perhaps, many liberal-minded Americans now see Obama as their true or, thus, expected champion to revolutionize the USA and take it more into the direction wanted, by them, in terms of Europeanization, if not yet a full attempt at radical Weimarization. In any event, it is, on the part of any conservatives or so-called conservatives (the neocons), simply morally reprehensible and, moreover, totally antithetical to an extreme in genuinely wanting to sincerely wish the President-elect well (concerning – what? – his ideological agenda’s basic welfare and success).

Such basely absurd sentiments of (bizarre) well wishing, when properly examined, are nothing short of social, political, cultural, and moral insanity and, moreover, a vile masochistic desire for attaining, in its ultimate, a form of national suicide. So, in conclusion, the asseverated real answer to the proposed rhetorical question is that “they” will never have finally arrived, meaning that always going too far to the Left can, thus, never ultimately be actually that far enough.

As with any mirage, therefore, the closer people get to it, the faster it necessarily fades away into mere nothingness as readily compared to its original image, perceived clearly, when at a distance; the “it” (that does not ever exist) is justifiably called Utopia; it is the realm of ideological fanatics who, in the cited case above, positively hate their own native land as a sure way of not knowing how much they hate themselves in the psychological process of such a convenient detestation.