Today as I was walking along the street, I saw a dump truck filled to the top with manure, garbage, and offal back up to a man's front lawn while he was standing on it, and dump its entire load of disgusting waste on his head.
Shocked by the scene, I ran over to his house, helped him dig himself out of this pile of filth, and asked him if he were all right. "All right?" he replied, "Of course I'm all right. I've been waiting for that truck to arrive for hours."
"You wanted to be covered with this muck?"
"Naturally!"
"But why?"
"I paid good money to be doused in refuse, and I expect my money's worth!"
"You paid for this? How much did you pay?"
"Oh, between 20 - 30% of my annual income."
"What?! How did you come to be mixed up in this?"
"Oh, I called this company up and asked them to drop garbage on me."
"I'm afraid I don't follow. Why would you do that?"
"Because if I didn't ask them to do it, another dump truck that's slightly larger might have come by and unloaded its cargo on my lawn!"
"But you've already had a dump truck come by and deposit its cargo on your lawn."
"Yes, but it's not quite as much! There's a smaller chance of my catching cholera or typhoid from this garbage everywhere."
"I really don't understand you. Are you saying that there's another company whose business it is to dump garbage on people's front lawns?"
"Yes! Don't you know that? Both companies are nationwide!"
"And you say that the other trucks are bigger?"
"Much bigger?"
"Have you seen them?"
"Of course! Here comes one now."
My interlocutor points his finger at a truck trundling down the road, full to the top with garbage, which it then deposits on another person's house.
"I'm afraid I don't see any difference in size between them."
"Are you kidding me? That thing is enormous!"
"Well, how do you know your company's trucks are smaller?"
"It says so right here?"
"What's this?"
"An advertising brochure they sent me. It says right here, 'Our dump trucks are the most modern, technologically advanced trucks in the industry. They're smaller, more reliable, and offer more sterile waste for a pleasant inundation.' There! What do you say to that?"
"Is it true?"
"Pah! 'Is it true?'!" Of course it's true! This company is famed for its honesty! It's the other company you can't trust!"
"I hate to contradict you again, but when I watched that truck deliver its load, I could distinctly smell a very foul odor, saw rust streaks and slime all over the inside of the container, and I'm pretty sure that the operator hocked a loogie into the back of the truck before he pressed the button. I wouldn't call this service anything near sterile.
"Oh, really? So what would you suggest?"
"Well, have you considered cancelling this...uh, 'service'?"
"Troublemaker! Anarchist! I'm calling the cops!"
And now we must pass from this parable, but for those who still can't get enough, here's Tommy Douglas' famous "Mouseland" fable:
Friday, October 23, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Looking Out for Number One
I finally got a Huffington Post account in order to respond to several ignorant comments about the G20 protests in Pittsburgh. I was more than a little sharp with some of the liberals there, but the moderators only deleted one post. In response to a post claiming that video of a protester being hauled off by men in fatigues into an unmarked car was staged by the protesters, I wrote, "The Huffington Post is a place where crackpot realism meets crackpot conspiracy theories".
This was deleted in no time at all.
This was deleted in no time at all.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Against the “Great Books” Tradition
One of the overriding concerns among academics in the humanities is that good old liberal education is in trouble: undervalued by the public, unpursued by students, and underfunded by universities switching from a core curriculum stressing liberal arts subjects to a “consumer's choice” model dominated by the so-called ‘practical’ majors like business administration. Many writers rushed in to diagnose the malaise and make a few prescriptions for the ailing humanist, and none were more common than the suggestion of a return to the tradition of the “Great Books”, those timeless classics that form the foundation of liberal education and the very cornerstone of Western Civilization itself.
Or so it was said.
The real problem with this argument is that the Great Books never fulfilled the function that their proponents wanted to claim for them. This Wikipedia article on the Great Books makes a telling mistake, locating the source of the tradition in “the result of a discussion among American academics and educators, starting in the 1920s and 1930s and begun by Prof. John Erskine of Columbia University, about how to improve the higher education system by returning it to the western liberal arts tradition of broad cross-disciplinary learning.” However, by the 1920s, there were already series that purported to represent the tradition of the Great Books, most famously “Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf” of the Harvard Classics. Clearly the explanation that this tradition arose out of the optimistic 1920s notion of everyone being able to avail themselves of “lifelong learning” through the Great Books of Western Civilization is wrong or incomplete.
So when did the Great Books tradition start? Like other aspects of the canonization of Western Culture, it began in the 19th century. Go to preserved collections of the private libraries of some of America's nouveau riche, like the Huntington Library in Southern California, and you'll find scores of books, in series, that predate even Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf. These represent the first stirrings of the Great Books tradition.
In the late 19th century and turn of the 20th century, new fortunes were being made throughout America. The Old Money families regarded these interlopers with suspicion and disdain, even if a few of the families whose Old Money had gotten a little ragged over the years welcomed their infusions of ready cash with new allegiances and marriages of convenience. The Old Money had a common culture, full of its own private signifiers, unstated but potent rules of conduct, and so on. The “New Money” interlopers had to make their way in the midst of a complex network of norms, codes, subtle snubs, and cultural commonalities. A sherry glass was never just a glass that happened to have sherry in it, and you mistook the one for the other at considerable social peril. If you showed up in black-tie to a white-tie affair, you might as well have come in overalls with a sign tacked to your chest reading “Hick”. Edith Wharton's scathingly funny and tragic observations of the clash between New Money and Old Money in the late 19th c. form the primary context for most of her novels.
Naturally, this led to a great deal of self-consciousness on the part of America's nouveau riche, and they sought to make up their deficiencies as best they could by holding lavish balls and banquets, seeking out experienced manservants and ladies' maids who could instruct them in the unwritten codes of conduct, and patronizing all the most fashionable gentlemen's clubs and cultural events. However, there was one deficiency they couldn't cure: their lack of conversational skills. Old Money women went to finishing schools and Old Money men to elite universities. They sought the source of Western culture in their tours of the Continent. The New Money men and women had no such educational background and at the end of every lavish dinner party, when the men had retired to brandy and cigars in the study and the women were refreshing themselves with tea and fresh fruit in the salon, there would be a horrible moment when a gentleman began discussing Marcus Aurelius or one of the ladies dropped the name of Charlotte Brontë, destroying New Money's pretension to sophistication. Something had to be done, and fast.
Enter the Great Books tradition. Culture by the yard, suitable for any richly-paneled library. One read through of these and you need no longer fear the embarrassment of having witty banter dry on your tongue. Even being seen having this set, whether the pages remain uncut or not, entitles you to be considered as one of the cultured elite. Then the Great Books tradition became twinned with the tradition of liberal education already in place at the Ivy League universities because Junior New Money was going to need the same predetermined intellectual background as New Money Senior in order to fit in with the Old Money elite, and if the university wasn't going to deliver it then, by God, what were they paying tuition for.
According to Allan Bloom, author of the sleeper bestseller The Closing of the American Mind, that's where things stayed until the 1960s. Then... crisis! revolution! revolt! Liberal education gave way to the pernicious demands of feminists and militant Black and Chicano activists, and the reckless, Dionysian influences of “rock and/or roll” (in the words of Rev. Lovejoy). Bloom's book is more than an absurd tirade against more than twenty-five years of popular culture, though it doesn't come much more absurd than equating Woodstock to Hitler's Nuremberg rallies. It is a profoundly undemocratic book, and thus in keeping with the Great Books tradition. Bloom complains that “Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are not what they used to be—the last resorts of aristocratic sentiment within the democracy” (p. 89).
Bloom yokes this “aristocratic sentiment” to his vision of liberal education through a Great Books tradition, and yet his views are profoundly at odds with liberal education itself. He sees young people in misanthropic terms that are indistinguishable from Ayn Rand. He invites us to
It's clear that the Great Books tradition never shed its aristocratic, elitist biases, but it also violates the spirit of liberal education in several other ways. Great Books advocates claim that reading these works will provide us with a common context necessary for understanding and deploying allusions, references, similes, and help us to understand the present in light of the past, a common and I believe plausible justification of liberal education. However, the Great Books pedagogy treats the books themselves as if they were completely transparent, context-free, and shorn of history. If the Great Books require reading other books for full understanding and comprehension, then the justification for presenting these as representative of the sum total of all worthwhile knowledge of Western Civilization disappears. Despite the fact that works like Don Quixote, one of the perennial picks for the Great Books, requires the background of contemporary chivalric literature to be fully understood, it is read as an isolated work of Cervantes' solitary genius. Bloom claims this is the way “the authors wished [the Great Books] to be read” (p. 344).
Lastly, liberal education is, according to its defenders, a means of synthesizing and reasoning about a broad range of knowledge, but the same standard is never applied to the Great Books tradition. Reasoned arguments over the inclusion or exclusion of certain books is not welcome because the list is a reflection of the combined wisdom of Western Civilization. Attack the list and you attack civilization itself. Using knowledge of the Great Books as the basis of and test for “cultural literacy” implicitly but clearly affirms that anyone who does not share in the knowledge of the Great Books is to be stigmatized—their “outside” knowledge doesn't matter. Far from being a synthesis, the Great Books tradition is a reactionary invalidation of every form of knowledge not immediately derived from study of the so-called classics.
It's obvious why these were appealing arguments to be making in the midst of Reaganism. The Great Books pedagogy disdained the contributions of women, ‘minorities’, appealed to Eurocentrism, and established easily imposed and arbitrary curricula that students ‘needed’ to know, further contributing to the de-professionalization of teaching which could then be used to justify lower wages for teachers and less investment in public schools. Anyone who remains serious about liberal education must reject the Great Books tradition and all its baggage for these reasons. This doesn't mean giving up on teaching Shakespeare or Austen, but on the assumption that any arbitrary selection of authors can give a complete and comprehensive view of anyone's culture. If the defenders of liberal education fail to distance themselves in the public eye from this elitist and undemocratic tradition, then liberal education will deserve its derision, marginalization, and opposition.
Or so it was said.
The real problem with this argument is that the Great Books never fulfilled the function that their proponents wanted to claim for them. This Wikipedia article on the Great Books makes a telling mistake, locating the source of the tradition in “the result of a discussion among American academics and educators, starting in the 1920s and 1930s and begun by Prof. John Erskine of Columbia University, about how to improve the higher education system by returning it to the western liberal arts tradition of broad cross-disciplinary learning.” However, by the 1920s, there were already series that purported to represent the tradition of the Great Books, most famously “Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf” of the Harvard Classics. Clearly the explanation that this tradition arose out of the optimistic 1920s notion of everyone being able to avail themselves of “lifelong learning” through the Great Books of Western Civilization is wrong or incomplete.
So when did the Great Books tradition start? Like other aspects of the canonization of Western Culture, it began in the 19th century. Go to preserved collections of the private libraries of some of America's nouveau riche, like the Huntington Library in Southern California, and you'll find scores of books, in series, that predate even Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf. These represent the first stirrings of the Great Books tradition.
In the late 19th century and turn of the 20th century, new fortunes were being made throughout America. The Old Money families regarded these interlopers with suspicion and disdain, even if a few of the families whose Old Money had gotten a little ragged over the years welcomed their infusions of ready cash with new allegiances and marriages of convenience. The Old Money had a common culture, full of its own private signifiers, unstated but potent rules of conduct, and so on. The “New Money” interlopers had to make their way in the midst of a complex network of norms, codes, subtle snubs, and cultural commonalities. A sherry glass was never just a glass that happened to have sherry in it, and you mistook the one for the other at considerable social peril. If you showed up in black-tie to a white-tie affair, you might as well have come in overalls with a sign tacked to your chest reading “Hick”. Edith Wharton's scathingly funny and tragic observations of the clash between New Money and Old Money in the late 19th c. form the primary context for most of her novels.
Naturally, this led to a great deal of self-consciousness on the part of America's nouveau riche, and they sought to make up their deficiencies as best they could by holding lavish balls and banquets, seeking out experienced manservants and ladies' maids who could instruct them in the unwritten codes of conduct, and patronizing all the most fashionable gentlemen's clubs and cultural events. However, there was one deficiency they couldn't cure: their lack of conversational skills. Old Money women went to finishing schools and Old Money men to elite universities. They sought the source of Western culture in their tours of the Continent. The New Money men and women had no such educational background and at the end of every lavish dinner party, when the men had retired to brandy and cigars in the study and the women were refreshing themselves with tea and fresh fruit in the salon, there would be a horrible moment when a gentleman began discussing Marcus Aurelius or one of the ladies dropped the name of Charlotte Brontë, destroying New Money's pretension to sophistication. Something had to be done, and fast.
Enter the Great Books tradition. Culture by the yard, suitable for any richly-paneled library. One read through of these and you need no longer fear the embarrassment of having witty banter dry on your tongue. Even being seen having this set, whether the pages remain uncut or not, entitles you to be considered as one of the cultured elite. Then the Great Books tradition became twinned with the tradition of liberal education already in place at the Ivy League universities because Junior New Money was going to need the same predetermined intellectual background as New Money Senior in order to fit in with the Old Money elite, and if the university wasn't going to deliver it then, by God, what were they paying tuition for.
According to Allan Bloom, author of the sleeper bestseller The Closing of the American Mind, that's where things stayed until the 1960s. Then... crisis! revolution! revolt! Liberal education gave way to the pernicious demands of feminists and militant Black and Chicano activists, and the reckless, Dionysian influences of “rock and/or roll” (in the words of Rev. Lovejoy). Bloom's book is more than an absurd tirade against more than twenty-five years of popular culture, though it doesn't come much more absurd than equating Woodstock to Hitler's Nuremberg rallies. It is a profoundly undemocratic book, and thus in keeping with the Great Books tradition. Bloom complains that “Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are not what they used to be—the last resorts of aristocratic sentiment within the democracy” (p. 89).
Bloom yokes this “aristocratic sentiment” to his vision of liberal education through a Great Books tradition, and yet his views are profoundly at odds with liberal education itself. He sees young people in misanthropic terms that are indistinguishable from Ayn Rand. He invites us to
Picture a thirteen-year-old boy sitting in the living room of his family home doing his math assignment while wearing his Walkman headphones or watching MTV. He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by the most productive economy ever known to mankind; science has penetrated the secrets of nature in order to provide him with the marvelous, lifelike electronic sound and image reproduction he is enjoying. And in what does progress culminate? A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy (pp. 74-5).Is this not simply a way of asserting that the child is a “moocher” and that contemporary culture has produced a proliferation of like “moochers”, who benefit from the intellectual life they do not partake in, wouldn't understand if they tried to, and therefore do not deserve? Allan Bloom seems to think so. His prescription for higher education is that humanists must “Go Galt”, withdrawing from the corrupting influences of popular culture, feminism, and multiculturalism and establish a priestly caste at a few top-tier universities where the life of the mind can be fully pursued.
It's clear that the Great Books tradition never shed its aristocratic, elitist biases, but it also violates the spirit of liberal education in several other ways. Great Books advocates claim that reading these works will provide us with a common context necessary for understanding and deploying allusions, references, similes, and help us to understand the present in light of the past, a common and I believe plausible justification of liberal education. However, the Great Books pedagogy treats the books themselves as if they were completely transparent, context-free, and shorn of history. If the Great Books require reading other books for full understanding and comprehension, then the justification for presenting these as representative of the sum total of all worthwhile knowledge of Western Civilization disappears. Despite the fact that works like Don Quixote, one of the perennial picks for the Great Books, requires the background of contemporary chivalric literature to be fully understood, it is read as an isolated work of Cervantes' solitary genius. Bloom claims this is the way “the authors wished [the Great Books] to be read” (p. 344).
Lastly, liberal education is, according to its defenders, a means of synthesizing and reasoning about a broad range of knowledge, but the same standard is never applied to the Great Books tradition. Reasoned arguments over the inclusion or exclusion of certain books is not welcome because the list is a reflection of the combined wisdom of Western Civilization. Attack the list and you attack civilization itself. Using knowledge of the Great Books as the basis of and test for “cultural literacy” implicitly but clearly affirms that anyone who does not share in the knowledge of the Great Books is to be stigmatized—their “outside” knowledge doesn't matter. Far from being a synthesis, the Great Books tradition is a reactionary invalidation of every form of knowledge not immediately derived from study of the so-called classics.
It's obvious why these were appealing arguments to be making in the midst of Reaganism. The Great Books pedagogy disdained the contributions of women, ‘minorities’, appealed to Eurocentrism, and established easily imposed and arbitrary curricula that students ‘needed’ to know, further contributing to the de-professionalization of teaching which could then be used to justify lower wages for teachers and less investment in public schools. Anyone who remains serious about liberal education must reject the Great Books tradition and all its baggage for these reasons. This doesn't mean giving up on teaching Shakespeare or Austen, but on the assumption that any arbitrary selection of authors can give a complete and comprehensive view of anyone's culture. If the defenders of liberal education fail to distance themselves in the public eye from this elitist and undemocratic tradition, then liberal education will deserve its derision, marginalization, and opposition.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Futility
Are the hostages dead?
Thought so.
Were they beheaded, and has the video of their beheading been posted to the Internet yet?
I am Futilitarian.
I subscribe to the philosophy of futilitarianism, not to be confused with utilitarianism.
The word “utility” has to do with usefulness. If you simply place an “F” at the front of the word, it takes on the opposite meaning: Futility.
Isn’t that interesting?
Fuitilitarianism is the philosophical position that all human (and animal) endeavors are fundamentally futile. It has its own ontology, epistemology, metaphysics and ethics. You could study futilitarianism for years, and at the end of your efforts find yourself none the wiser for having undertaken them. In this, futilitarianism shares a key characteristic of all other philosophical schools.
I once had a girlfriend who was remarkably upbeat. Her cheerfulness eventually got on my nerves. One day I told her, “You’re not really happy, you know.”
“What do you mean, I’m not happy? Of course I’m happy!”
“No, you’re not. Not really.”
“But I AM happy!” she dogmatically asserted, stamping her foot.
“No, you’re not. Look how angry you’re getting right now. Angry people aren’t happy people.”
She glowered at me, arms akimbo.
“You’re unhappy, but you just don’t know it,” I lectured her. “People who are unhappy and don’t know it are called happy.”
Shortly thereafter, she broke up with me.
Once, I applied for a “good” job. I don’t know why. I even wore a suit and tie to the interview.
During the course of the interview, which was conducted by three representatives of the company’s Department of Human Resources, I expounded on the inferiority of their product. Although the company had high sales volume, I pointed out that most businesses eventually fail and that given enough time, all of them would either fail, or be sold to another company. I also reminded them that even if they continued to run their business successfully for a number of years, all of them would eventually die.
I did not receive a job offer, presumably because I was overqualified for the position in question. I do not know why it was necessary for me to be escorted from the premises by security guards, however.
Capitalism is a snake eating its own tail. It is predicated upon a steady growth rate of approximately 3.5 percent per year. Simple math tells you that if such growth in gross domestic product (with its concomitant population increase) were to continue unabated for another 100 years, there would not be a vacant lot left in the world. What will happen instead is the collapse of civilization and mass population die-off. It should be perfectly obvious, even to economists, that one cannot have infinite growth in a finite world. The building of an industrial, high-tech civilization was therefore in vain. It was a futile endeavor.
Life itself is futile: it is the process of localized pockets of order and complexity piggy-backing, temporarily, on the growth of entropy (disorder) in the cosmos as a whole.
Things run down; cars rust and fall into desuetude; bridges collapse; man grows old, withers and dies. The whole universe is mostly a void immensity of nothingness, in which not even the howling of the wind can be heard. In the fullness of time the expanding sun shall swallow the earth and no trace of human existence shall be left behind; not even a footprint in the sand.
Some people find hope in the religious idea of life after death; they yearn for immorality beyond the grave. In this hope, I am afraid that they are sadly deceived. For either it is not true that we shall somehow survive our deaths; or, if it is true, then we shall soon wish that we were dead. To be immortal would be to experience an eternity of boredom. Suppose you like Mexican food. Do you like it so much that you would eat it every single day? How many days in a row could you eat Mexican food, before you gradually began to detest the vile stuff? Immortality would be like that: an eternity of refried beans.
Thought so.
Were they beheaded, and has the video of their beheading been posted to the Internet yet?
I am Futilitarian.
I subscribe to the philosophy of futilitarianism, not to be confused with utilitarianism.
The word “utility” has to do with usefulness. If you simply place an “F” at the front of the word, it takes on the opposite meaning: Futility.
Isn’t that interesting?
Fuitilitarianism is the philosophical position that all human (and animal) endeavors are fundamentally futile. It has its own ontology, epistemology, metaphysics and ethics. You could study futilitarianism for years, and at the end of your efforts find yourself none the wiser for having undertaken them. In this, futilitarianism shares a key characteristic of all other philosophical schools.
I once had a girlfriend who was remarkably upbeat. Her cheerfulness eventually got on my nerves. One day I told her, “You’re not really happy, you know.”
“What do you mean, I’m not happy? Of course I’m happy!”
“No, you’re not. Not really.”
“But I AM happy!” she dogmatically asserted, stamping her foot.
“No, you’re not. Look how angry you’re getting right now. Angry people aren’t happy people.”
She glowered at me, arms akimbo.
“You’re unhappy, but you just don’t know it,” I lectured her. “People who are unhappy and don’t know it are called happy.”
Shortly thereafter, she broke up with me.
Once, I applied for a “good” job. I don’t know why. I even wore a suit and tie to the interview.
During the course of the interview, which was conducted by three representatives of the company’s Department of Human Resources, I expounded on the inferiority of their product. Although the company had high sales volume, I pointed out that most businesses eventually fail and that given enough time, all of them would either fail, or be sold to another company. I also reminded them that even if they continued to run their business successfully for a number of years, all of them would eventually die.
I did not receive a job offer, presumably because I was overqualified for the position in question. I do not know why it was necessary for me to be escorted from the premises by security guards, however.
Capitalism is a snake eating its own tail. It is predicated upon a steady growth rate of approximately 3.5 percent per year. Simple math tells you that if such growth in gross domestic product (with its concomitant population increase) were to continue unabated for another 100 years, there would not be a vacant lot left in the world. What will happen instead is the collapse of civilization and mass population die-off. It should be perfectly obvious, even to economists, that one cannot have infinite growth in a finite world. The building of an industrial, high-tech civilization was therefore in vain. It was a futile endeavor.
Life itself is futile: it is the process of localized pockets of order and complexity piggy-backing, temporarily, on the growth of entropy (disorder) in the cosmos as a whole.
Things run down; cars rust and fall into desuetude; bridges collapse; man grows old, withers and dies. The whole universe is mostly a void immensity of nothingness, in which not even the howling of the wind can be heard. In the fullness of time the expanding sun shall swallow the earth and no trace of human existence shall be left behind; not even a footprint in the sand.
Some people find hope in the religious idea of life after death; they yearn for immorality beyond the grave. In this hope, I am afraid that they are sadly deceived. For either it is not true that we shall somehow survive our deaths; or, if it is true, then we shall soon wish that we were dead. To be immortal would be to experience an eternity of boredom. Suppose you like Mexican food. Do you like it so much that you would eat it every single day? How many days in a row could you eat Mexican food, before you gradually began to detest the vile stuff? Immortality would be like that: an eternity of refried beans.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Futilitarian here.
Looks around. Eyes move rapidly from side to side.
Details to follow. Stay logged on.
Do not use heavy machinery under the influence of marijuana or strong alcoholic drink.
This is a test to see if my blog post goes through.
Test. Test. Test.
Looks around. Eyes move rapidly from side to side.
Details to follow. Stay logged on.
Do not use heavy machinery under the influence of marijuana or strong alcoholic drink.
This is a test to see if my blog post goes through.
Test. Test. Test.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
UPDATE: Photos of Two ELA Members!
The kidnappers have not contacted me with any further demands or communiqués. However, I have been in contact with the relevant authorities and I was told that the Ecumenical Liberation Army has taken captives before, but they haven't been harmed. I find this reassuring. I feel confident now that Futilitarian and I can negotiate our blog's safe release.
They told me that one of the kidnap victims, Mary Ann Gifford, a wealthy heiress, has inexplicably sided with her captors and is now a fully fledged left-wing guerrilla fighter operating here in America.
The authorities provided me with her picture, as well as the picture of the leader of the ELA, the Great Ahmed Khan, and I am authorized to reveal them to you. These pictures were taken during an armed robbery of the Flagstaff Independent Bank in Arizona.
The Great Ahmed Khan
Mary Ann Gifford
If you see either of these people on the internet, be advised that they may be armed and are considered dangerous.
Stay safe out there people, and keep a sharp lookout on your own blogs.
They told me that one of the kidnap victims, Mary Ann Gifford, a wealthy heiress, has inexplicably sided with her captors and is now a fully fledged left-wing guerrilla fighter operating here in America.
The authorities provided me with her picture, as well as the picture of the leader of the ELA, the Great Ahmed Khan, and I am authorized to reveal them to you. These pictures were taken during an armed robbery of the Flagstaff Independent Bank in Arizona.
The Great Ahmed KhanMary Ann GiffordStay safe out there people, and keep a sharp lookout on your own blogs.
ALERT: Hostage Crisis!
My friends and dear readers, I am so shaken that I can barely write this post. I don't know how this happened. I blame myself for not keeping a closer eye on things. Still, I am trying my best to resolve the situation peaceably and without losing anyone.
I received the following communiqué this morning via an untraceable anonymous remailer from a group calling itself the Ecumenical Liberation Army.
Wow. I don't know what to say. I am in shock. I didn't think there were radical groups in America who did this sort of thing anymore.
I'll keep you, my dear readers, updated on every moment of this unfolding hostage crisis.
Now I need to go consult my co-blogger to find out how we're going to respond to this threat.
I received the following communiqué this morning via an untraceable anonymous remailer from a group calling itself the Ecumenical Liberation Army.
ECUMENICAL LIBERATION ARMY COMMUNIQUÉ #1
I am the Great Ahmed Khan, leader of the Ecumenical Liberation Army. We are in possession of your blog. We have watched this blog lapse into inactivity over the past two months without even being given the chance to live.
Our demands are simple. We demand that you, Nullifidian, and your co-blogger Futilitarian post regularly to your blog. We do not demand that you post every day, but you are expected to maintain a regular level of activity which will keep us amused, informed, and interested. Failure to cooperate with our demands risks the life of your blog.
Think carefully about what your next act will be.
Power to the people!
The Great Ahmed Khan
Wow. I don't know what to say. I am in shock. I didn't think there were radical groups in America who did this sort of thing anymore.
I'll keep you, my dear readers, updated on every moment of this unfolding hostage crisis.
Now I need to go consult my co-blogger to find out how we're going to respond to this threat.
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