DeRosaWorld

Happy Birthday, Author Michael Moorcock

Michael John Moorcock is an English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels.

Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination.

He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library.

As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States.

His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine...

Moorcock is lots of fun and his books make great gifts for smart teens who love sci-fi and fantasy/adventure. They are way out there.

Some of my favorites are The Jerry Cornelius quartet of novels:

    * The Final Programme
    * A Cure for Cancer
    * The English Assassin
    * The Condition of Muzak

Saturday Musings: 'The "If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting" - Curtis LeMay' Edition

Pope Benedick-head V1,V1,V1 wants a “Leaner, Smaller, Purer Church.”.

Now all you abortion hating, ex-commie fighting Catholics in America, please don’t misunderstand his Holiness's message… from God…to Pope…to you… It is not about you or religion or sex.

It is about money and like every other country and corporation on the planet this century, The Vatican is going to turn its back on America and go after the dumb poor. America has become the smart poor. We don't give generously to a church that molests our children or we chose weekly groceries over the weekly donation envelope.

The Church is going to send the Holy Spirit into Central and South America and into Africa to convert the poor, the hungry, the mourners, to the one true faith… with donations accepted at services.

But remember, on Sunday, according to the Prefect of the Congregation for Doctrine, it is now okay to throw a Nazi salute after blessing yourself.. SO it is forehead, heart, left shoulder, right shoulder, Hail Hitler!

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Why did President Obama double down with our young soldiers in Afghanistan?

If it is war, let the air force go at it for a couple of weeks to kill every living thing along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. Then put a standing order that if one more terrorist attack happens on American soil, the capital cities of all Middle Eastern nations will be nuked.

Hold them all hostages for peace: Ankara, Beirut, Jerusalem, Riyadh, Sana, Muscat, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Manama, Kuwait City, Baghdad, Damascus, Amman, Tehran, Ashgabat, Kabul, Islamabad, Dushanbe, Tashkent, Bishkek

If even one attack… they all go. So they are all in it together. Peace in our time.

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If the Republican Party is not blown out of the water in 2010 and then ended in 2012 then the American people might as well roll up the side walks and go home.

Watch TV for a ½ hour and listen to their side of the debate on any topic. You may not love the Democratic Leadership, but good lord, at least most of them have the middle class in mind and are not certifiably insane.

Let’s just take two extremes… Senators Vitter and Franken. Now who do you really want making decisions about your future, your children and your grand children?

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I have made my Holiday gift-giving Writer of Choice for Christmas 2009 decision: Somerset Maugham. So if you are a member of my ever expanding family, be prepared to be Anglicized this year. Cakes & Ale anyone?

Who Is Philip Caputo?

 

Who is Phillip Caputo? (Here is a Charlie Rose interview ... skip to 33:45 of the one hour program.)

He is a novelist and journalist who has written some interesting books over the past thirty years starting with A Rumor Of War (1977), based on his experiences during the Vietnam War.

As a journalist he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 while working for the Chicago Tribune.

A Rumor Of War first captured my attention. I tried to follow Caputo’s writing career, but it seems at times he disappears for years. I have caught up with him now and again with Indian Country, Horn Of Africa and The Voyage.

The Voyage is a fine novel of the sea. When was the last time we had one of those? This book and A Rumor Of War sets Caputo apart from other writers, but he is not a wild bestseller.  His books are vigorously researched and always fascinating.

His latest, Crossers was savaged by The New York Times (The Los Angeles Times was kinder), but I find Caputo more real than most American bestsellers out there today. Caputo gets interested in a topic, immerses himself in it and then brings the story to you either as a non fiction piece or as a novel, as he sees fit. His prose are powerful and their deliberate artistic intensity pull you into his books.

There may not be a lot of room on Americans' bookshelves filled with Richard Russo, Don Delillo, Pete Dexter or Dan Brown, but Philip Caputo is a good writer and a fine novelist who deserves to be read.

My recommendation is to start with The Voyage and then take a trip back to A Rumor Of War. From there you are on your own to continue reading stories from the point of view of a smart and honest man.

Saturday Musings 'Too Much Time On My Hands' Edition

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Whenever the Crazy gets turned up too high for me to deal with, I re-read some Hunter S. Thompson to put my life in perspective. The man knew how to cope.

I work all the time and having four days off in a row over this Thanksgiving holiday has given me time to think... which means it has given me time to worry...My thoughts on the week that just passed.

We have terrorists blowing up trains in Russia.

We have non-terrorists killing soldiers in America.

Tiger Woods wife is taking a golf club to his head.

Glenn Beck is on my TV, my radio and my computer every day. Even the progressive blogs feature every utterance of that man.

Sarah Palin is back and bigger than ever. She even has a porn-side show with her little hockey player.

Oprah is quitting.

Joss Wedon’s new show was canceled.

The dollar is falling.

CHASE bank keeps chasing me around like a fucking PAC MAN eating my banks as fast as I can open a new checking account. Don’t you guys get it. I do not want a CHASE account!

I thought I voted in a liberal President, hell, he was even half black! But instead I get a Republican who happens to not be a neo-con. Is that the best I can expect from the Democratic Party?

I didn’t do any shopping on Black Friday.

I recycle.

I have two fucking 15 year old cats.

I donate to KPFK.

I don’t eat as much red-meat as I want used to.

I grow my own fucking tomatoes.

I fly three thousand miles to see my mother at Christmas and the holiday costs me about $1,500 each year. I've already got the tickets and they cost over $1,200... so I'll be over my limit by 12/24/09.

I buy expensive health care through my job and I can only get one pair of glasses per year.

I don't understand Obamacare.

I’ve had the same three Netflix movies sitting on my TV for two months.

Everyone is getting Frank Sinatra's A Man Alone for Christmas.

I’ve read fewer books this year than anytime since I was 6 years old...

It was at this point I decided to find Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.

Required Reading At Hogwarts: C.I.A. Manual of Trickery And Deception

It was written in 1953 by magician John Mulholland for a fee of $3,000 (£1,800) - considerable at the time.

Yeah, it's true. These are the guys who were leading our fight to create the American Empire around the world. This is the stuff of dreams and nightmares.

You can follow this thinking from our trying to poison world leaders like Fidel Castro to the Umbrella Man at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.

We laugh now, but they took this stuff very seriously. They thought they were taking over the world... and nearly did. They certainly took over this country.

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.

Some Thoughts By Writers

Within ourselves is not very far and yet it is so far that one's whole life is not always long enough to get there.
Julien Green

About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
Ernest Hemingway

All in all, I would not have missed this century for the world.
Gore Vidal

No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.
Jack Kerouac

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. William Faulkner

It does not matter much whom we live with in this world, but it matters a great deal whom we dream of.
Willa Cather

All right, then, I'll go to hell.
Mark Twain

Saturday Musings: 'Does President Obama Like Chinese Food?' Edition

A bunch of old rich white men, and maybe a few women, but they probably won’t speak, are debating whether or not to debate the future of American health care. This ought to be a real treat.

The United States Senate… what a pack of losers, bought, sold and scared. Not scared of their constituents, but of the lobbyist and the media. Whatever they come up with, I probably don’t want, because it is not in my interests they meet today.

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I heard that President Obama visited China last week. I saw it on the BBC. I tried to find some wall-to-wall coverage of the President abroad, but American TV didn’t  cover it. I wonder what the President and those 2 billion Chinese talked about?

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I wish the progressive blogs would write more posts featuring progressive people and less time on what conservative and crazy-right pundits had to say. I really don’t need a re-cap of what Glenn Beck said every day. I don’t watch him for a reason. I don’t want to hear what he has to say. A strange cycle some blogs have found themselves in… recapping the stupid.

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I have a good idea for health care… Medicare… and extend it to every U.S. citizen. How do we pay for it? Let’s try not fighting a foreign war for maybe like a decade and see how much money we save… or maybe only just fight one, you know, to keep us in shape.

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Can you imagine if President Obama announced the end of military activities in Afghanistan, effective immediately. And then he puts the 9/11 left-over terrorists on trial  in Manhattan and kind of just wraps up the Bush, Jr/Cheney era war on terror… you know, starts his own version of peace and security instead of trying to prop up what previous administrations have done…and starting in 2010 we have the Obama Doctrine. I wonder what that would look like.

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My television is dying. I have the last fat, really heavy, tube TV in the United  States. Last night it started to fade to black and then slowly fade back up to picture again. I thought it was just the movie I was watching, some strange film editing trick, but then the picture would turn purple and only fill half the screen, then bounce back. I guess it’s time to go flat screen, LCD, LED, HD and all that. I don’t watch any weekly series. I don’t have TIVO... I wonder if I can get by with just my computer.

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I broke my two month on-line book buying fast. I bought a birthday present that had to be shipped across the country. I bought my nephew Philip Caputo’s The Voyage.

Saturday Musings 'Republicans On My TV' Edition

Why are there Republicans? Because of television, I guess.

If people vote their conscience, their pocket book, their health care, their safety… Democrats would be a super majority.

The few folks that vote their prejudices would pull the Republican lever in the voting booth, but that does not send anyone to Washington or a State House.

It must be that the television lies to us… and we watch it and trust it too much.

I wish I could answer the TV back.

But that wish would be un-American.

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I did like the image of President Obama visiting Arlington cemetery and seeming to be taking his own council over the idea of perpetual war. I guess we'll see.

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According to PBS and Elizabeth Warren, the Credit Card companies are going to be sending hit men out to get us all before the February 2010 regulations kick in... so don't answer your phone.

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I chose not to purchase any on line music or books in October or November and I think I am tanking the economy. I am panicking the on line stores and getting flooded with incredible bonus emails... just in time for holiday shopping. Now that is gaming the market. I even went so far as to go into a book store on the way home from work one night... and pay cash.

A History Lesson For President Obama

Parallels to Vietnam are obvious, but the enemy is different, the times are different and the President is different.

I can't begin to get into the mind of Lyndon Johnson, but John Kennedy's political journey is much easier to read. It was a clear and logical progression away from war.

He learned he had nothing to prove and no one to prove it to... and he ended up in the shooting gallery of Dallas, Texas because of it.

But the endless war for peace is a lie. There never is to be a peace.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s the French Government faced the War of Algerian Independence. A colonial war, but with something different, something new... the Islamic Revolution was in the mix.

President Obama and his team should take a look at A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 by Alistair Horne. A history of France's Algerian War. Supposedly a bestseller in the U.S. military during the disastrous Bush, Jr./Cheney years as the military searched for an understanding of what they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Each war is unique in its time, its landscape, its leaders and its soldiers. But each war teaches the next set of warriors lessons. Afghanistan is a war zone that has had many lessons to teach over the centuries, but those lessons are eventually forgotten or ignored by succeeding generations.

President Obama stands at a crossroads in history, a crossroads in this war and a crossroads in his Presidency. He faces a dust storm. He can take cover or he can enter the blinding sand.

It is hard to offer this President the advice that he should heed the lessons of President Kennedy. President Kennedy ended up dead for his decisions. Leaving Afghanistan will blow a dust storm of hate and fear around President Obama... but it is time for a new profile in courage.

We voted for a change.

President Obama should turn away from Afghanistan and take refuge from the storm.

At What Point Do You Just Stop?

 

KPFK in Los Angeles has been in the midst of a Beg-A-Thon fundraiser for weeks. Look folks, I love you all, and support you, but maybe people can't afford to give this year.

I can't listen to the pleading anymore. It becomes pointless after a while. Maybe...obviously... no one is listening and that is what you should be concentrating on.

Sorry.