THE LEMON BASKET 330-334

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#330 September 9, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

UNTRUE PROVERBS

The fear of death is to be dreaded as the fountain overflows.

Love, and a cough, soon dies.

Fear is the parent of happiness.

Beware the tyranny of will power.

A poem should be more fun than a drinking spree in New York.

A RAMBLING MAN SPEAKS

Listen to the voice of experience.
A rambling man speaks.
The Vineyard is good in September.
Race Point Beach is good in October.
St. Louis is good in November.
San Francisco is good in December.
LA is good in January.
Nantucket is good in February.
Atlanta is good in March.
The Cape is good in April.
DC is good in May.
Maine is good in June.
Vermont is good in July.
The Adirondacks are good in August.
And for those who just like to play
Wherever you are is good on any day.
And there you are.

1*SALUTATION
From Neat Net Tricks Issue 116, 20011215
DILLON'S ONLINE VOCABULARY.
Choose your words carefully and see how well you master the English language.
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/tomdillon/

2*REFERENCE
From NATION 20020121
http://www.sauerrroe.com
http://www.wilbertrdeau.com

3*HUMOR
From BRILL'S 6-01
http://www.vicepresidents.com

4*NOVELTY
From NEWSWEEK 19990920
The Amazing Netscape Fish Cam
http://www.netscape.com/fishcam/

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
From HARPERS 8?03
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info

6* DAILY UTILITY
From NEWSWEEK 20010402
Travel
http://www.virtuallythere.com

7*CARTOON
http://www.qwantz.com/

8*PRESCRIPTION
From TIME 20000605
CONTRA ECSTASY
http://www.clubdrugs.org

9*RUMOR PATROL
From USNEWS & WORLD REPORT 20001023
http://www.theshadowlands.net/places

10*LAGNIAPPE
From ECOLOGIST 6-00
http://www.redpepper.org.uk

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
THE COFFIN LIDS
Abbey Lounge Records
Live Trash
21 songs

When listening to this entertaining live trash-can grab-bag of garage band screamers, it helps if you take on as your own the junk rock aesthetic of the Cramps and their ancestors like Screaming Jay Hawkins and the countless Nuggets, Pebbles, and Boulders garage bands that followed in his sordid wake. You might still say that this is fucking terrible. I wouldn't be so harsh, though. It's honest and direct and that counts for a lot these days. And what self respecting lover of low-down bad-ass rock 'n' roll could resist the likes of "One Foot in the Grave," "(Badass Motherfucking Dodge) Supercharger," "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" and their righteous cover of The Sonics' "(She's a) Witch"---like a satanic take on "Little Latin Lupe Lu," which the Clash later swiped and called "Should I Stay or Should I Go"? Point being, this right here is a prime specimen of the missing link between rockabilly and punk. And at least one song here belongs in some sort of schock 'n' roll hall of fame: I refer, of course, to their rendition of that California classic "(You Must Fight to Live) On the Planet of the Apes."
ADVERTISEMENT:
BUY CDS, DVDS, & VIDEOS VIA SECOND SPIN:
http://www.secondspin.com/index.cfm?From=sd?20072

CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrocks.htm
http://www.dreamwater.net/mpc/lemonrock.htm

240. TEN WORST SONGS OF ALL TIME
Well, as far as I'm concerned, any such list which omits such groaners as "The Music Goes Round and Round"and "The Ferryboat Serenade" and "Wildflower" and Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night" and "Afternoon Delight" and "Maneater" and "Playground in My Mind" and "Seasons in the Sun" and "Volare" and "Feelings" is no list at all, but, for what it's worth, here is what a more contemporary critic has to say:


10. "I Disappear" by Metallica:
Makes the list for two reasons: one, it highlighted the soundtrack to Mission: Impossible 2, a movie so utterly devoid of anything resembling entertainment, I actually left it with tuberculosis. And two, it came out just around the time Lars and Co. were shitting themselves about Napster. Did you notice it was only shit bands like Metallica and Smash Mouth who made a stink about Napster? Listen, assholes, you can't put out 12 screechingly awful ballads and expect folks to plunk down $17 on them. I'd go further into my Napster rant, but that's so five years ago. I might as well bitch about the Brian Setzer Orchestra.

Worst lyrics:
Do you bury me when I'm gone
Do you teach me while I'm here
...Just as soon as I belong, then it's time I disappear.

On the plus side, I illegally downloaded this song. In your face, Metallica.

9. "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" by Will Smith:
I swear to all that is holy, this song is the anthem for the Antichrist. I hated hated hated hated this song. Hated it. Not that I've got beef with the Fresh Prince. (How did Bad Boys 2 not win an Oscar? Oh, right. It sucked dick.)

Worst lyrics:
Unh, unh, unh, unh
Hoo cah cah
Hah hah, hah hah
Bicka bicka bow bow bow,
Bicka bow bow bump bump.

I dunno either. I think it's from an old Lennon song.

8. "Bawitdaba" by Kid Rock:
Shhh. I don't want to jinx it, but I'm pretty sure the Kid Rock era is officially over. What was this guy anyway? Was he country? Was he a rapper? Why was he doing songs with Sheryl Crow? How did Pamela Anderson fall for him? How did Carson Daly host TRL all those years with his head lodged up Kid's colon? It's inexplicable to me. You know those people who think the Holocaust was made up? That's how I feel about the Kid Rock era. I just can't imagine that anything this atrocious ever took place.

Worst lyrics:
Wild mustangs and porno flicks
All my homies in the county in cell block six.

Is cell block six where they keep the bunny rapists?

7. "No Such Thing" by John Mayer:
Can you believe how stupid girls are? Some schmuck gets a dumb haircut and does a Dave Matthews impersonation and suddenly his ovaries are exploding. I remember hearing a ton of hype about this guy before ever hearing a single song (not a good sign), and when I finally heard this tripe, I was in awe. It's fast-paced emo, with a rock beat and gay lyrics. I guess the best adjective to describe it is, "Fallopian."

Worst lyrics:
Faded white hats
Grabbing credits
Maybe transfers
They read all the books but they can't find the answers.

Deep. Impossibly trite and inane, but deep.

6. "The Greatest Love of All" by Whitney Houston:
She believes that children are our future. Give me a fucking break. And since I have nothing else to say, remember that movie The Bodyguard? Well, last summer I wrote about the ten worst movies of all time, and I still can't believe I neglected that movie. You have Kevin Costner and this crack whore in an action movie with a romantic subplot, and there's about as much chemistry as a porno between Billy Graham and a wrench.

Worst lyrics:
No matter what they take from me
They can't take away my dignity.

Nope, but the crack pipe can. Hey, how come nobody says "diva" anymore? Did VH1 officially stomp that term to a bloody death? I must know these things.

5. "My All" by Mariah Carey:
The very worst Mariah song, even worse than those songs she did with Da Brat and Jay-Z. I'm going to show some restraint and not make fun of "Glitter" or her nervous breakdown, or her weird descent from rural princess to urban faux-whore....but she's a goddamn whore fake psycho bitch who made a terrible movie. (Dammit. I thought I could do it.)

Worst lyrics:
I can see you clearly
Vividly emblazoned in my mind.

Can they please get Mike Tyson to remix this song? Imagine Iron Mike sweating his way through "vividly emblazoned." How can something be vividly emblazoned anyway? Someone get me some weed.

4. "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle:
Christ, if there's a more effeminate song in music history, I haven't heard it. A vagina could play the harmonica and have more balls than this. Anyway, Bob Carlisle's only apparent aspiration was to write a song that would become a headache-inducing staple of daddy-daughter dances. Way to set the bar high, Bob.

Worst lyrics:
As I drop to my knees by her bed at night
She talks to Jesus and I close my eyes and
I thank god for all the joy in my life.

Dude, he's molesting his daughter. Does anybody else see this? Read between the lines, people.

3. "The Boy is Mine" by Brandy and Monica:
God, I hated this song. And the video was even worse, particularly since MTV decided to play it roughly 145,234 times a day during the summer of '98. Can you think of a more musically cancerous duo than Brandy and Monica? Bono and a turd? Jesus and a toilet? Tough call.

Worst lyrics:
Must you do the things you do
Keep on acting like a fool
You need to know it's me not you
And if you didn't know it girl it's true.

Hey, she rhymed "do" with "you." Why do people think black chicks are uneducated? Ooooh. Sorry, that was uncalled for. I really like black chicks, I own Gary Sheffield's rookie card.

2. "Perfect" by Simple Plan:
Hey, I liked Blink 182 as much as the next 16-year-old boy with big ears and a hankering for boobies. But, were they really worth the ensemble of rip-offs that ensued, including, but not exclusive to Sum 41 and Bowling for Soup? But Simple Plan, I mean, yikes. At least "I'd Do Anything" and "Addicted" were catchy, but now they're trying to do a ballad about their father? We've come a long way since "Adam's Song" and that's not a good thing.

Worst lyrics:
Please don't turn your back
I can't believe it's hard
Just to talk to you
But you don't understand.

And remember, this song is about his dad. His dad. If I wrote this about my dad, he'd chase me around with a pitchfork. And I'd deserve it.

1. "Let me Clear my Throat", by DJ Kool:
Ok. Just give me a second. Every time I'm at a bar and this song comes on, everyone goes apeshit like House of Pain just showed up, tossed back a few Milwaukee's Bests, and wants to perform live for four minutes. I just don't get the fascination. The rapping is horrible, and the rapper sounds like he has an Ebola monkey trapped in his trachea. And I'm supposed to dance to this? Listen, white boys from suburban Rhode Island who drive Oldsmobiles don't groove to just anything.

Worst lyrics:
*Cough, cough*

Honestly, stop playing this at bars.
Source: http://www.pointsincase.com

 

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#331 September 16, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

MORE UNTRUE PROVERBS

100,000 MEN AND 100,000 DOLLARS ARE NEVER WRONG.
THE DEVIL IS A HERO.
FREE WILL IS NEITHER WILL NOR FREE.
HUNGER IS BETTER THAN A LAUGH.
THE WORLD IS A PLAYGROUND WHERE MADMEN GROW DIZZY.

OK, we'll call this one The first law of Urban Legends:

Dolts will drool over wheezy conspiracy theries if you sex them up.

Like this one:
"Boys on the Tracks"- Two teenage boys killed in Arkansas by police who laid
the two boys on railroad tracks and said they fell asleep after smoking to
much grass.

Or this one: ca. 1967 there was this report that two students had gone
blind from ingesting LSD then staring at the sun....

Trouble is, the first incident actually happened.

Which leads us to sometimes ask, "What if the conspiracy theories are actually all true?"

But I'll bet virtually nobody says this about the followers of the enigmatic Lyndon LaRouche.

Of course, the followers of Lyndon LaRouche believe that the Queen on
England is responsible for importing drugs into the U.S. I guess the
Luccheses and other mobsters were just taking her marching orders...

It occurs to me that if the Larouchites were serious about getting their
ideas heard, they wouldn't call themselves Laroucheites. They'd call
themselves nuts. Your average aluminum-foil-hat-wearing lunatic has at least
30 per cent more street cred than your average Larouche soldier.

Where does all the money come from? IS the Queen of England funnelling vast
reservoirs of heroin-tainted lucre to the states in oder to fund a bunch of
lunatics who CLAIM she is doing just that?
And who is that hooded man who's staring at me through my window? He--

1*SALUTATION
From The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 142 5/17/2001
The Busy Person's Guide to Creating Your Own Funeral Or Memorial Service.
http://wz.com/people/CreatingYourOwnFuneral.html

2*REFERENCE
Hotels where pets are welcome
http://www.petswelcome.com/

3*HUMOR
From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 158 9/6/01
Centre for the Easily Amused
a one stop shop for those in search of creative ways to
waste time online.

Visitors to the Centre will find a variety of amusements, from
interactive renditions of legendary game shows and irreverent animation to every
imaginable card and board game. Need more? Lottery, trivia games and a
wide selection of prizes are available for truly talented gamers. Finally,
useless entertainment on the Net!!
http://www.amused.com/

4*NOVELTY
A totally awesome tribute to Jimi Hendrix.
http://bandofgypsys.cjb.net/

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
Proud to be an American
http://users.rcn.com/soberbyker/index.html

6* DAILY UTILITY
From COOL TRICKS AND TRINKETS 89 20000511
Xcelent 808's Page
A great collection of cool links.
http://www.nevermind.bored.org

7*CARTOON
Internet Theme Park
http://www.yesterland.com/yester.htm

8*PRESCRIPTION
From: The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 190 4/18/02
Antique and Classic Camera Web Site
http://members.aol.com/dcolucci


9*RUMOR PATROL
THE BEST OF WORLD'S FESTIVALS
http://www.worldmedia.fr/festivals/eng/home.html


10*LAGNIAPPE
From The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter # 191 4/25/025
Cooking: Italian Style

Any word association game that starts with the word "Italian" has got
To end with the response "food!" Miloni Online translates into "millions,"
as in recipes, ideas, wines, events, tips, culinary secrets, ingredients
and cooking classes for Italian cuisine, surely one of the world's favorite
ways to eat.

Recipes from Almond Cake to Zucchini Loaf are organized by cookbook and
ingredient. The food section leaps way beyond pasta to include spices,
honey, even truffles; the wine section is organized by type, grape and
producer and includes tasting tips. A special Sicilian section
describes confections, citrus fruits and cheeses. Available in English and
Italian, from the Italian Culinary Institute.

http://www.milioni.com/

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:

A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
STOLEN BIKE CRUSADE
a'tr Records
Stolen Bike Crusade
8 songs

This drum-bass-guitar-vocal ensemble offers up a nonstop of circus of angst and though I could do without being force-fed their lyric K-ration of callow nihilism and perpetually thwarted pique amid dulled expectations, I think they are better than at least 90 per cent of their speedcore ilk and capable of far, far more. They have too much of a knack for hypertrophied melody and attention-gripping rhythmic dynamics and are simply too fucking talented to be mere shouters and bashers. I can't stop listening to the damned thing. This reminds me a lot of how Hüsker Dü used to get my heart racing. This works best as a continuous suite, but the song "Forgotten Silver" is the standout---a pulsating and wildly malignant module of throbbing anxiety bursting into a cathartic shouts of heartsick rage. I would be fascinated to see them develop their capabilities to the fullest, which might not mean ditching the fear and loathing but distilling it and sanctifying it rather than merely wallowing in a dust bath of their own fear and revulsion. Nevertheless, when all is said and done, this is a knockout debut. (Francis DiMenno)


CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
241. FOR A SONG TO BE BEAUTIFUL THE ARTIST MUST BE FREE

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty.
I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished,
if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
Buckminster Fuller

 

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#332 September 23, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

BRING BACK THE COLD WAR!

"Communism is the death of the soul. It is the organization of total conformity - in short, of tyranny - and it is committed to making tyranny universal." -- Adlai E. Stevenson

"Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy." --Mao Tse-Tung
 
"Communism possesses a language which every people can understand - its elements are hunger, envy, and death" -- Heinrich Heine

"Communism is in conflict with human nature." -- Ernest Renan
 
"Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English" --Lenin
 
ANGER IS BETTER THAN A CHEAP LAUGH

Let us discuss these "laws":

The Law of Tokens: All Black men who wear suits also speak with perfect diction.

The Ice T Law: If a Black man speaks with less than perfect diction, he's street smart.

The Law of Similars: All Black men, everywhere, unless they are unforgivably "establishment", are "down with the homies", because they automatically speak "the language of the streets".

The Law of the Vernacular: What Black men lack in erudition, they more than make up for in the imaginative use of their colorful argot, which, in many respects, is preferable to correct (but staid) formal English.

Conclusion: The most harmful belief systems stem from unexamined assumptions.

1*SALUTATION
From NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS 20050714
Association of literary scholars and critics
http://www.bu.edu/literary
http://www.thevalve.org

2*REFERENCE
From NEWSWEEK 20050919
FALL FOLIAGE
http://www.visitnh.gov
http://www.michigan.org
http://www.snowmassvilliage.com
travellanecountry.com


3*HUMOR
THE DECLINE OF COLLEGE HUMOR
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i26/26b01501.htm

4*NOVELTY
From NEWSWEEK 20050926
CLOTHING
http://www.glam.com


5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
From TIME 20050926
SOLDIER BLOGS
http://www.misoldierthoughts.blogspot.com
http://www.bootsinbaghdad.blogspot.com
http://www.sgtlizzie.blogspot.com
http://www.madeucegunners.blogspot.com
http://www.thunder6.typepad.com

6* DAILY UTILITY
From NEWSWEEK 20050912
CHEAP CREDIT
http://www.commerceonline.com

7*CARTOON
WIRED: COMICS ONLINE
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.08/net_surf.html

8*PRESCRIPTION
From US NEWS & WORLD REPORT 20050919
SUV MILEAGE
http://www.usnews.com/suv

9*RUMOR PATROL
From HARPER'S 8-05
WHAT WENT WRONG IN OHIO
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohiostatusrept/505.pdf

10*LAGNIAPPE
From NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS 20050324
NEW YORK REVIEW CHILDREN'S COLLECTION
http://www.nyrb.com

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA

THE GULF
Ultragold
Mind in a Helmet
7 songs

The Faheyesque "Tell Me It's Alright" hits the soul spot, but one out of seven ain't so good. It's not enough anymore that an album consist of ambiant lilt and in-genre finger exercises. It's a whole new world. And I'm disappointed that a band capable of such sharp musicianship would serve up such a lazy batch of mostly self-indulgent sonic pudding. Take "God's Machine-Gun": In 1973 there were prog bands galore (Floyd, Preservation-era Kinks) which could have put out an song like this, only they probably would have left it in the can. Or take "Get the Feeling": in 1983 there were indie bands galore (Camper Van, Violent Femmes) which might have issued this on limited edition vinyl but only reissued it as part of a box set long after breaking up. Or take "Sensation Z": in 1993 some smart-ass college radio programmer might have aired something like this as a goof so he could sit back and listen to the enraged squeals and snorts of affronted hipsters as they called in en masse to call him an asshat for playing such stillborn would-be emo. I think you get the idea: MIAH is musically pleasant enough but unfortunately tinged with narcissism and self-righteousness and a type of desiccated earnestness ill-targeted to appeal to anyone looking for originality and passion.

CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
242. EVERYTHING BAD IS GOOD FOR YOU
I haven't read this yet, but it seems as though there's a big untapped market for books that tell you that you can indulge in sloppy intellectual habits and still come across like a braniac. A kind of a "Calories Don't Count" for the conceptually challenged. The success of such a book bearing such a title seems proof positive that the world is a playground full of dizzy morons.

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#333 September 30, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

CAPITALISM RULES OK

"Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate" -- Bertrand Russell
 
"Capitalism is what people do if you leave them alone"--Kenneth Minogue

"While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser" --Karl Marx
 
"All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgments of probabilities, and not on certainties."
 --Charles W. Eliot   
 
"Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force."--George Bernard Shaw

THE SELF-HATERS RELEASE SELF-TITLED DEBUT, BREAK UP

Review: The Most Hated (December 13, 1977-December 14, 1977) were a snarling corps of angst-raddled wannabes who recorded 14 "songs"--mostly untuned "instrumentals" and snarling vocalizations, and clocking in at a mere 21 minutes--and released one "album"--a recording of the only set they ever played, a cassette-only product which they refused to release. Today they are the most revered of early Punk Rock bands.

Where are they now?
Johnny Junk died of a drug overdose.
Joey Heroin is a history teacher.
Jimmy Hate is a charismatic fundamentalist preacher.
Jackie Aphid has vanished into a witness protection program.

Track listing:

Fun is Fun.
What Happened to the 16?
Please Please John, Please
You Promised a Million
Fast and Furious
The Dot and Dash System.
13780
Reserve Decision, Police, Police
When He Is Happy He Doesn't Get Snappy
The Glove Will Fit
Kayiyi, Kayiyi
Sure, Who Cares?
Hoboe and Poboe
I Think I Mean the Same Thing

1*SALUTATION
From NEWSWEEK 20050919
FAMILY TRAVELING
http://www.familytravelforum.com
http://www.travelforkids.com
http://www.travel.state.gov
http://www.cdc.gov/travel

2*REFERENCE
From TIME 20050926
SEARCHING FOR BLOGS
http://www.blogsearch.google.com
http://www.technorati.com
http://www.blogdigger.com
http://www.icerocket.com

3*HUMOR
HUMOR, JOKES AND FUN MAGAZINES
http://www.windy-city.com/onlinemags/magazine/humor.html

4*NOVELTY
From NEWSWEEK 20050912
HORIZONTALLY-STRIPED CORDUROYS
http://www.cordarounds.com

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
From NEWSWEEK 20050926
BICYCLING ADVOCACY
http://www.thunderheadalliance,org
http://www.activetransportation.org/Maps.htm
http://www.bikeleague.org
http://www.biketraffic.org/trickstips

6* DAILY UTILITY
From NEWSWEEK 20050912
FINANCIAL ADVICE FOR RETIREES
http://www.fidelity.com
http://www.vanguard.com

7*CARTOON
ASKART: CARTOONISTS
http://www.askart.com/AskART/interest/Cartoons_and_Comics_as_an_American_Art_Form_1.aspx?id=20&pg=style

8*PRESCRIPTION
From TIME 20050926
COLLEGE RANKINGS
http://www.studentsguide.com

9*RUMOR PATROL
KATRINA: first hand account
http://www.desertdispatch.com/2005/112757606840567.html

10*LAGNIAPPE
From NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS 20050407
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS: A CENTURY OF BOOKS
http://www.pup.princeton.edu


11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
VICTORY AT SEA
Kimchee Records
The Good Night
10-song CD

This will be your manifesto if you are the type of person who feels that nobody cares what you are going through, as though your friends have given you up as a lost memory and that you are lost in the love of and the oblivion of death where there is neither clear direction nor unalloyed pain. If you feel there is no prospect whatsoever for you other than the shipwreck of your life's plans, and "After Hours" by the Velvet Underground is your favorite song, then by God (who may or may not exist) this CD is for you. However, if you are not chronically depressed, then the often quasi-poignant cantillations of the lead vocalist might seem ill-matched to the Kafka-esque vignettes presented in these songs. "Proper Time" strikes the right note and is the exception that proves the rule. Even so, as a whole the CD is far greater than the sum of its parts; it's a descent not so much into a maelstrom of blind yet vindictive chaos as a brackish dip into the bitter becalmed latitudes of dashed hopes.

11A
BOOKS, GRAPHIC NOVELS AND FILMS RATED
* Mere Trash
** Little potential
*** Average
**** Interesting
***** Great

100% EVIL. BLECHMAN & NIEMANN. *****
1001 MOVIES YOU MUST SEE BEFORE YOU DIE. ****
AL CAPP REMEMBERED. CAPLIN. ****
BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK [FILM]. ****
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS [FILM]. *****
BORN TO KILL. ***1/2
CABLE/DEADPOOL 2. **1/2
CONTROLLED BURN. WOLVEN. ****
CRASH [FILM]. ***
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. GIBBON. *****
DON JUAN. BYRON. ****1/2
FEET ON THE STREET. BLOUNT. ****1/2
FIVE FAMILIES. RAAB. ***1/2
FRANK MILLER'S SIN CITY [FILM]. ****1/2
GAMBIT: HOUSE OF CARDS. **1/2
HULK:GRAY. ***
I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG [FILM]. ***1/2
ICE HAVEN. CLOWES. ****1/2
LIFE OF THE PARTY. FLEENER. ***1/2
THE LITTLE RED WRITING BOOK. ROYAL. ****1/2
MAN-THING: WHATEVER KNOWS FEAR...***1/2
MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN 3. ***
A MILLION LITTLE PIECES. FREY. ****
MUZZLERS, GUZZLERS, & GOOD YEGGS. COLEMAN. ****
MYSTIC RIVER [FILM]. ***
MY FRIEND LEONARD. FREY. ***1/2
THE NEVERMEN. **1/2
NEW RULES. MAHER. ***1/2
PANIC IN THE STREETS [FILM]. ***
PSYCHOTIC REACTIONS AND CARBURATOR DUNG. BANGS. ****
SABRETOOTH: OPEN SEASON. **
SENSATIONAL! MEXICAN STREET GRAPHICS. ****
SE7EN. ****
SOME WRITERS DESERVE TO STARVE! NILES. ****
SUPERMAN/BATMAN 1. ***
SUPERMAN/BATMAN 2. ***1/2
SUPERMAN/BATMAN 3. ***1/2
THIRTEEN [FILM]. ****
TRANSPORTER [FILM] **1/2
TRINITY. WAGNER. ***1/2
ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR 3. ***
WANTED. MILLAR. ****
WELFARE BRAT. CHILDERS. ***1/2
WOLVERINE: ENEMY OF THE STATE. ***1/2
CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
243. SATAN--MAN OF THE CENTURY?

Of course, Satan doesn't exist. But if he did, he would be a contender. Along with his raffish krew:

Conchita Bael
Elsworth Agares
Nehemiah Vassago
Salvatore Samigina
Gower Marbas
Hartley Valefor
Sol Amon
Hackett Barbatos
Strang Paimon
Bill Buer
Gus Gusion
Lemuel Sitri
Sproule Beleth
Bill Lerie
Eli Eligos
"Zip" Zepar
Brian Botis
"Bathless" Bathin
Consuela Sallos
Proctor Purson
Mendel Morax
Montgomery Ipos
Tom Aim
Nabil Naberius
Glasya-Labolas
"Dan'l" Bune
Nevin Ronove
Jamal Berith
Myron Asteroth
Baldemar Forneus
Blaze Foras
Ziv Asmodai
Yedidayah Gaap
Bert Furfur
Leopold Marchosias
Richard Stolas
Zora Phenex
Leslie Halphas
Otto Malphas
"Popeye" Raum
Crispin Focalor
Dougal Vepar
Brandy Sabnock
Vesta Shax
Carlotta Vine
"Beefy" Bifrons
Nial Vual
William Haagenti
Jim Crocell
Doree Furcas
Gilead Balam
Rula Alloces
Olaf Camio
Dido Murmur
Hedda Orobas
Otis Gamori
"Easy" Ose
Cadmus Amy
Cynara Orias
Pepin Vapula
Zilpah Zagan
Alanna Volac
Alvah Andras
Petunia Haures
Mario Andrealphus
Ysabel Cimejes
Waller Amdusias
Clarimond Belial
Sylvester Decarbia
Ferdinand Seere
Trixie Dantalion
Penrod Andromalius

TO CONCLUDE:

12*APPROBATION AND OPPROBRIUM
From: TM
I liked #332. Short but sweet, especially the reminder on what an effin' drag Communism was/is. (No, I am not a conservative!) If I hear anyone talk shit about how great Communism was, I just say "fine, ask my friend Peter how much fun it was to grow up in Czechoslovakia." Shuts 'em right up. Bloody wankers. When I was living in some hovel in Cambridge in 1983 with a bunch of Harvard kidz, whenever they pipedreamed of how great it would be to live in some Soviet Bloc worker's paradise, to which I'd say "all the Communist countries spend billions to keep their citizens from escaping... people who want to leave have to make a break for it, and are often shot in the attempt. How fucked a system is that? Is that not an admission that their system is truly hosed?"  I never did get a rational comeback. I also like your statement that "The most harmful belief systems stem from unexamined assumptions." All humans should say it over and over until it sinks in, along with other good ones like "perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I do not have all the answers; perhaps I am full of shit."
Your Pal,
Tim Mungenast
 

THE LEMON BASKET: THE BEST AND WORST OF THE WEB
#334 October 7, 2005
Copyright 2005 FRANCIS DIMENNO
http://www.dimenno.blog-city.com

CRIMINAL WORLD

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
- Honore de Balzac

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
- Aesop

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
- Aristotle

Nothing is illegal if a hundred businessmen decide to do it, and that's true anywhere in the world.
- Andrew Young

The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.
- Lao Tzu

THE ANYTOWN DEMIMONDE: LIVES OF IGNOBLE AMERICANS (1-6)

HILLEL & GLADYS GLASYA-LABOLAS
Hillel Glasya-Labolas looks very much like a nice old Jewish man; someone who says "God bless you" and asks "Have you had enough to eat?" He has a notable protuberance on the tip of his nose, is deeply wrinkled, and tends to favor navy-blue double-breasted suits and slightly raffish purple snap-brimmed hats. You might mistake him for someone's toothless and slightly feebleminded great-grandfather; little more han a slippered pantaloon content to while away his declining years dreaming and dozing by the fire. But in reality, he is the ruthless brains behind "The Outfit", a sinister organization which controls a spidery numbers racket, as well as the ubiquitous illicit slot machines which dot the candy stores and taverns of Haven like so many metallic sores. His "wife", Gladys, is a rather brash housemaid in her early forties who favors blood-red lipstick and nail polish, as well as fingernails filed to sharp points. She acts as his eyes and ears. She is a stocky redhaired dame, loudmouthed and inarticulate, who is known to use her slab-hard fists to knock down a schoolyard bully or to collect protection money from a recalcitrant merchant or vigorish from a hapless degenerate gambler.
LINKED TO: PEPIN VAPULA

GOWER "TURKEY" MARBAS
"Turkey" is a singularly apt nickname for Gower Marbas, who bears a remarkable resemblance to that bird. He is a bald-headed man of about 50 with a scrawny neck, prominent Adam's-apple, and bulging eyes. He stands 5 foot 11 and weighs about 150 pounds. His preferred dress is a white herringbone jacket and baggy white pants, with black penny loafers. He is not known to be violent but has in the past employed violent Brazilian "enforcers." He is fluent in Portuguese. Marbas started small, as the owner/proprietor of Big Gower's Liquors on Route 6A in Belle Avon. There he sold smuggled smokes and allowed his staff to sell kegs to minors who would then proceed to whoop it up in the woods behind the baseball diamond. Before long he branched out into bootleg videos and DVDs, renting out high-demand movies and sometimes selling products before they had even premiered on area screens. Routine payoffs to dozy area constabulary ensured their sleepy-eyed compliance. When crusading District Attorney Zachery Mope determined to nail Marbas on an underage sales charge, he woke up one morning to find the head of his purebred red tick Beagle "Justice" blooding his neatly manicured lawn. Shortly thereafter he resigned his position and moved his family out of the state.  Gower Marbas then proceeded to flood Belle Avon with 98 per cent pure heroin, which hospitalized more than one area teen until Gower learned the proper way to step on the product so that it was still snortable but no longer a heartstopper. His custom-twisted bindles, labelled "33", soon littered the woods behind the ballfield, where nobody played ball anymore because they were too strung out. Gower is now looking into cocaine, but, with the ruthless self-honesty which has propelled him to a leading role as a small-time but important player in the Anytown drug-smuggling cartel,  he admits to himself that as a small-town boy, the "whole cocaine thing" had more or less passed him by in the 1970s and early 80s. However, one can expect that soon he will master the ins and outs of cocaine and allied methamphetamine marketing techniques as easily as he mastered heroin and Oxy bootlegging.
LINKED TO: "BLAZE" FORAS

PEPIN VAPULA
To some, the stocky, white-haired bruiser known as Pepin Vapula is a commonplace semi-retired greasemonkey, gainfully employed on rare occasions only in oiling and repairing the creaking and fatigued fairground machinery of the Treasure Island amusement park. In reality, however. the canny French reynard has a finger in every grimy pie of Black & Black Travelling Carnival Enterprises, from the lowly bobbing ducks and Over-and-Under gaming tables right up to the food and beer concessions and the high-stakes poker games clandestinely held in the tent back of the Geek Exhibit. Vapula came up the hard way in the carny game--though born into it, his father, "Big Charley" Vepula, was an autocratic straw boss who made young Pepin work every angle of both the big and little con from an early age--from one-time stand-in for the hung-over and cholera-ridden Geek to shillaber, human target, pitchman, and fixer. He was rigging baseball and basketball pitches at the age of nine, and bilking area police chiefs out of look-the-other-way money by way of the Gypsy switch by the time he was 15. When he was 23 his father died after falling off the scaffolding of the rickety "Atomic Sledgehammer" ride, and Pepin took over the travelling carnival, eventually turning it over to his second-oldest son after 35 years. Nowadays, his legitimate activities include a franchise of all-night convenience stores called Gulp-n-Go, manned by his former carnival cronies, and a fleet of rickety buses used to ferry suckers to out-of-state gaming tables, where they are reliably fleeced by his confederates. He is suspected of numerous Social Security frauds, runs frequent but randomly targeted roofing, aluminum siding, and driveway resurfacing scams, and was recently charged with, though not convicted of, tampering with the state run lottery, which resulted in his winning tickets worth over $3,000,000, many of which ended up in the hands of family members. He drives a banged-up VW Golf and is otherwise unremarkable in appearence, favoring grease-soaked overalls and sweat-stained baseball caps. Owing to the alleged unprofitability of his fly-blown amusement park and shabby convenience store chain he pays virtually no federal income tax; however, his personal fortune is estimated at over one hundred million dollars. His oldest daughter is a cosmetician for a funeral home; his other daughter runs a florist shop; his oldest son is a tax lawyer.
LINKED TO: BALDEMAR FORNEUS

BALDEMAR FORNEUS & JOSEF "COFFIN" COUGHLIN
Jozef Czeslaw "Coffin" Coughlin (nee Kazimierz) is often seen lounging, crowbar in hand, in front of the heavily grilled windows of the fortess-like Narodowy Polski Club, or seated with his back to the wall tossing back shot after shot of Slivovitz Serbian plum brandy in a dark corner of the always nearly deserted Orzel Bar & Grille. He is perhaps best known for his habit of biting his nails. This would ordinarily be an unremarkable trait, except for the fact that he is the head of the Townsville Local 103 of the Carpenter's Union, and the nails in question are five inches long and made of iron. In the wake of Solidarity's failed bid to forestall Soviet incursions in the early 1980s, Jozef allegedly crossed the border into Germany, took to sea as a Naval carpenter's mate and jumped ship at Norfolk, Virginia. He became a citizen of the United States by claiming asylum as a political refugee.  He was, of course, nothing of the kind. Migrating north, one drywall job at a time, upon landing in Townsville he immediately allied himself with Baldemar (nee Boleslaw) Forneus, a former safecracker and racketeer who controlled most of the construction unions in Anytown. After a mysterious nail-gun accident left Forneus crippled from the waist down, Jozef stepped into his size 15 triple-E shoes to become the man known, in hushed whispers, as "The Widowmaker". Standing six feet six inches in his hobnailed boots, Coughlin is a rugged man known as a brutal powerhouse and gangland enforcer even among the toughs of Local 103, who have been thoroughly cowed by his prowess in using any number of  unconventional weapons to enforce his will. One rash individual who dared to challenge his rule, Mihai Radu, was eviscerated in an unfortunate chainsaw accident and, rumor has it, became part of the foundation of the Townsville Public Library.
LINKED TO: HILLEL GLASYA-LABOLAS

"DAN'L" BUNE
"Dan'l" Bune,  best known as "The Gentleman Pimp," may dress like a denizen of the Victorian era, from his white gloves and tophat to his spats and brown eyelet Oxfords, but when it comes to "keeping his pimp and strong" he's strictly up-to-the-minute. He is the owner of record of over a dozen South Side properties known to the police to be brothels. Overseeing over two hundred so-called Ladies of Easy Virtue might tax the capabilities of the stoutest man, but Bune has brought modern management techniques and what he calls "good old American know-how" to the task of managing his interconnected "Empire of Sin". Bune is surprisingly old-fashioned when it comes to the welfare of his harem, evicting known drug addicts, sending alcoholics to drying-out clinics, and even keeping a Doctor M. A. Busey on retainer to regularly test for sexually transmitted diseases. He strictly limits the amount of drink served in his establishment and has been known to evict even the burliest drunken client by grasping him by the scruff of the neck as though the brute were as weak as a sick kitten. He refuses to allow his employees to be characterized as "whores" or "prostitutes," or even as "masseuses" or "escorts." He prefers the French "Midinette" or the decidedly archaic term "Ladybird". He stands 6 feet tall in his stocking feet, weighs 180 pounds, and has not an ounce of fat on him, a feat he attributes to his "daily throwing of the medicine ball". He is rumored to be an opium-smoker, but there are no known suppliers of opium in the Anytown area. He is believed to be no older than 30.
LINKED TO: GOWER "TURKEY" MARBAS

"BLAZE" FORAS
Mac Raboy "Blaze" Foras, aka "Cinch" Foras, nee Fernandes, disproves the hoary adage that a burnt child shuns the fire. At age seven, when playing with some gasolene his father kept in a shed behind the house, he inadvertantly blew up a hardware store on Liberty Avenue and was in the hospital for a week, his hands horribly charred. His mother, who sat vigil by his bedside, later told him he kept muttering that he wanted his "little red wagon". What was strange, she told him, was that he had never owned such a wagon. Mac Raboy Fernandes was a studious child with a keen eye, who loved to draw nature scenes and life portraits. By the time he was fourteen, he had become an accomplished artist, and at the age of twenty his parents sent him to Paris to study at the Écoles d'art en France. Upon graduation, he moved to and became a well-known if not prominent banlieusard. One day, when changing a lightbulb in the hallway of his flat, he fell off the top rung on his stepladder and struck his head a violent blow. Thereafter, he abandoned his interest in art and began consorting with known members of the Parisian underworld, as well as with some notoriously clannish hoodlums from Marseilles who were linked to drug-runners from Corsica. Deported from France by the Prefecture of Police, Mac Raboy Fernandes settled in the Bronx, where he became a ruthlessly efficient arsonist-for-hire and the bane of all insurance agencies and fire departments in the metropolitan region. Seeking to escape his impending arrest on conspiracy and racketeering charges, Fernandes changed his name to Foras and now resides in the grimy, rough-and-tumble Cannery district, where he makes his living as a numbers runner with occasional forays into fire-setting. His favorite weapon is a lead pipe wrapped in a rolled-up newspaper, which accounts for his other nickname, "Cinch". He is about five feet six inches tall, of medium build, with long red hair and a red beard (hence his nickname "Blaze", which he affects to despise). He drives a late-model SUV, and, on occasion, can be seen at the Anytown dog track, where he has never been seen to gamble more than twenty dollars. His well-to-do parents know nothing of his notorious past, and are convinced that he still pursues his artistic vocation. If he does, it is by way of the newspapers, where front page photographs of his deadly handiwork in the arson trade are regularly published.
LINKED TO: "DAN'L" BUNE

Illustration: The Please-U Tavern on Skid Road, after the "accidental" fire.
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/austin7.jpg

1*SALUTATION
From The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter #370 9/29/05
SCIENCE OF MUSIC
http://www.exploratorium.edu/music/

2*REFERENCE
Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital
An Interview with Robert Putnam


Many students of the new democracies that have emerged
over the past decade and a half have emphasized the
importance of a strong and active civil society to the
consolidation of democracy. Especially with regard to
the postcommunist countries, scholars and democratic
activists alike have lamented the absence or
obliteration of traditions of independent civic
engagement and a widespread tendency toward passive
reliance on the state. To those concerned with the
weakness of civil societies in the developing or
postcommunist world, the advanced Western democracies
and above all the United States have typically been
taken as models to be emulated. There is striking
evidence, however, that the vibrancy of American civil
society has notably declined over the past several
decades.

Ever since the publication of Alexis de Tocqueville's
Democracy in America, the United States has played a
central role in systematic studies of the links
between democracy and civil society. Although this is
in part because trends in American life are often
regarded as harbingers of social modernization, it is
also because America has traditionally been considered
unusually "civic" (a reputation that, as we shall
later see, has not been entirely unjustified).

When Tocqueville visited the United States in the
1830s, it was the Americans' propensity for civic
association that most impressed him as the key to
their unprecedented ability to make democracy work.
"Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all
types of disposition," [End Page 65] he observed, "are
forever forming associations. There are not only
commercial and industrial associations in which all
take part, but others of a thousand different
types--religious, moral, serious, futile, very general
and very limited, immensely large and very minute. . .
. Nothing, in my view, deserves more attention than
the intellectual and moral associations in America." 1


Recently, American social scientists of a
neo-Tocquevillean bent have unearthed a wide range of
empirical evidence that the quality of public life and
the performance of social institutions (and not only
in America) are indeed powerfully influenced by norms
and networks of civic engagement. Researchers in such
fields as education, urban poverty, unemployment, the
control of crime and drug abuse, and even health have
discovered that successful outcomes are more likely in
civically engaged communities. Similarly, research on
the varying economic attainments of different ethnic
groups in the United States has demonstrated the
importance of social bonds within each group. These
results are consistent with research in a wide range
of settings that demonstrates the vital importance of
social networks for job placement and many other
economic outcomes.

Meanwhile, a seemingly unrelated body of research on
the sociology of economic development has also focused
attention on the role of social networks. Some of this
work is situated in the developing countries, and some
of it elucidates the peculiarly successful "network
capitalism" of East Asia. 2 Even in less exotic
Western economies, however, researchers have
discovered highly efficient, highly flexible
"industrial districts" based on networks of
collaboration among workers and small entrepreneurs.
Far from being paleoindustrial anachronisms, these
dense interpersonal and interorganizational networks
undergird ultramodern industries, from the high tech
of Silicon Valley to the high fashion of Benetton.

The norms and networks of civic engagement also
powerfully affect the performance of representative
government. That, at least, was the central conclusion
of my own 20-year, quasi-experimental study of
subnational governments in different regions of Italy.
3 Although all these regional governments seemed
identical on paper, their levels of effectiveness
varied dramatically. Systematic inquiry showed that
the quality of governance was determined by
longstanding traditions of civic engagement (or its
absence). Voter turnout, newspaper readership,
membership in choral societies and football
clubs--these were the hallmarks of a successful
region. In fact, historical analysis suggested that
these networks of organized reciprocity and civic
solidarity, far from being an epiphenomenon of
socioeconomic modernization, were a precondition for
it.

No doubt the mechanisms through which civic engagement
and social connectedness produce such results--better
schools, faster economic [End Page 66] development,
lower crime, and more effective government--are
multiple and complex. While these briefly recounted
findings require further confirmation and perhaps
qualification, the parallels across hundreds of
empirical studies in a dozen disparate disciplines and
subfields are striking. Social scientists in several
fields have recently suggested a common framework for
understanding these phenomena, a framework that rests
on the concept of social capital. 4 By analogy with
notions of physical capital and human capital--tools
and training that enhance individual
productivity--"social capital" refers to features of
social organization such as networks, norms, and
social trust that facilitate coordination and
cooperation for mutual benefit.

For a variety of reasons, life is easier in a
community blessed with a substantial stock of social
capital. In the first place, networks of civic
engagement foster sturdy norms of generalized
reciprocity and encourage the emergence of social
trust. Such networks facilitate coordination and
communication, amplify reputations, and thus allow
dilemmas of collective action to be resolved. When
economic and political negotiation is embedded in
dense networks of social interaction, incentives for
opportunism are reduced. At the same time, networks of
civic engagement embody past success at collaboration,
which can serve as a cultural template for future
collaboration. Finally, dense networks of interaction
probably broaden the participants' sense of self,
developing the "I" into the "we," or (in the language
of rational-choice theorists) enhancing the
participants' "taste" for collective benefits.

I do not intend here to survey (much less contribute
to) the development of the theory of social capital.
Instead, I use the central premise of that rapidly
growing body of work--that social connections and
civic engagement pervasively influence our public
life, as well as our private prospects--as the
starting point for an empirical survey of trends in
social capital in contemporary America. I concentrate
here entirely on the American case, although the
developments I portray may in some measure
characterize many contemporary societies.

Whatever Happened to Civic Engagement?
We begin with familiar evidence on changing patterns
of political participation, not least because it is
immediately relevant to issues of democracy in the
narrow sense. Consider the well-known decline in
turnout in national elections over the last three
decades. From a relative high point in the early
1960s, voter turnout had by 1990 declined by nearly a
quarter; tens of millions of Americans had forsaken
their parents' habitual readiness to engage in the
simplest act of citizenship. Broadly similar trends
also characterize participation in state and local
elections.

It is not just the voting booth that has been
increasingly deserted by [End Page 67] Americans. A
series of identical questions posed by the Roper
Organization to national samples ten times each year
over the last two decades reveals that since 1973 the
number of Americans who report that "in the past year"
they have "attended a public meeting on town or school
affairs" has fallen by more than a third (from 22
percent in 1973 to 13 percent in 1993). Similar (or
even greater) relative declines are evident in
responses to questions about attending a political
rally or speech, serving on a committee of some local
organization, and working for a political party. By
almost every measure, Americans' direct engagement in
politics and government has fallen steadily and
sharply over the last generation, despite the fact
that average levels of education--the best
individual-level predictor of political
participation--have risen sharply throughout this
period. Every year over the last decade or two,
millions more have withdrawn from the affairs of their
communities.

Not coincidentally, Americans have also disengaged
psychologically from politics and government over this
era. The proportion of Americans who reply that they
"trust the government in Washington" only "some of the
time" or "almost never" has risen steadily from 30
percent in 1966 to 75 percent in 1992.

These trends are well known, of course, and taken by
themselves would seem amenable to a strictly political
explanation. Perhaps the long litany of political
tragedies and scandals since the 1960s
(assassinations, Vietnam, Watergate, Irangate, and so
on) has triggered an understandable disgust for
politics and government among Americans, and that in
turn has motivated their withdrawal. I do not doubt
that this common interpretation has some merit, but
its limitations become plain when we examine trends in
civic engagement of a wider sort.

Our survey of organizational membership among
Americans can usefully begin with a glance at the
aggregate results of the General Social Survey, a
scientifically conducted, national-sample survey that
has been repeated 14 times over the last two decades.
Church-related groups constitute the most common type
of organization joined by Americans; they are
especially popular with women. Other types of
organizations frequently joined by women include
school-service groups (mostly parent-teacher
associations), sports groups, professional societies,
and literary societies. Among men, sports clubs, labor
unions, professional societies, fraternal groups,
veterans' groups, and service clubs are all relatively
popular.

Religious affiliation is by far the most common
associational [End Page 68] membership among
Americans. Indeed, by many measures America continues
to be (even more than in Tocqueville's time) an
astonishingly "churched" society. For example, the
United States has more houses of worship per capita
than any other nation on Earth. Yet religious
sentiment in America seems to be becoming somewhat
less tied to institutions and more self-defined.

How have these complex crosscurrents played out over
the last three or four decades in terms of Americans'
engagement with organized religion? The general
pattern is clear: The 1960s witnessed a significant
drop in reported weekly churchgoing--from roughly 48
percent in the late 1950s to roughly 41 percent in the
early 1970s. Since then, it has stagnated or
(according to some surveys) declined still further.
Meanwhile, data from the General Social Survey show a
modest decline in membership in all "church-related
groups" over the last 20 years. It would seem, then,
that net participation by Americans, both in religious
services and in church-related groups, has declined
modestly (by perhaps a sixth) since the 1960s.

For many years, labor unions provided one of the most
common organizational affiliations among American
workers. Yet union membership has been falling for
nearly four decades, with the steepest decline
occurring between 1975 and 1985. Since the mid-1950s,
when union membership peaked, the unionized portion of
the nonagricultural work force in America has dropped
by more than half, falling from 32.5 percent in 1953
to 15.8 percent in 1992. By now, virtually all of the
explosive growth in union membership that was
associated with the New Deal has been erased. The
solidarity of union halls is now mostly a fading
memory of aging men. 5

The parent-teacher association (PTA) has been an
especially important form of civic engagement in
twentieth-century America because parental involvement
in the educational process represents a particularly
productive form of social capital. It is, therefore,
dismaying to discover that participation in
parent-teacher organizations has dropped drastically
over the last generation, from more than 12 million in
1964 to barely 5 million in 1982 before recovering to
approximately 7 million now.

Next, we turn to evidence on membership in (and
volunteering for) civic and fraternal organizations.
These data show some striking patterns. First,
membership in traditional women's groups has declined
more or less steadily since the mid-1960s. For
example, membership in the national Federation of
Women's Clubs is down by more than half (59 percent)
since 1964, while membership in the League of Women
Voters (LWV) is off 42 percent since 1969. 6

Similar reductions are apparent in the numbers of
volunteers for mainline civic organizations, such as
the Boy Scouts (off by 26 percent since 1970) and the
Red Cross (off by 61 percent since 1970). But what
about the possibility that volunteers have simply
switched their loyalties [End Page 69] to other
organizations? Evidence on "regular" (as opposed to
occasional or "drop-by") volunteering is available
from the Labor Department's Current Population Surveys
of 1974 and 1989. These estimates suggest that serious
volunteering declined by roughly one-sixth over these
15 years, from 24 percent of adults in 1974 to 20
percent in 1989. The multitudes of Red Cross aides and
Boy Scout troop leaders now missing in action have
apparently not been offset by equal numbers of new
recruits elsewhere.

Fraternal organizations have also witnessed a
substantial drop in membership during the 1980s and
1990s. Membership is down significantly in such groups
as the Lions (off 12 percent since 1983), the Elks
(off 18 percent since 1979), the Shriners (off 27
percent since 1979), the Jaycees (off 44 percent since
1979), and the Masons (down 39 percent since 1959). In
sum, after expanding steadily throughout most of this
century, many major civic organizations have
experienced a sudden, substantial, and nearly
simultaneous decline in membership over the last
decade or two.

The most whimsical yet discomfiting bit of evidence of
social disengagement in contemporary America that I
have discovered is this: more Americans are bowling
today than ever before, but bowling in organized
leagues has plummeted in the last decade or so.
Between 1980 and 1993 the total number of bowlers in
America increased by 10 percent, while league bowling
decreased by 40 percent. (Lest this be thought a
wholly trivial example, I should note that nearly 80
million Americans went bowling at least once during
1993, nearly a third more than voted in the 1994
congressional elections and roughly the same number as
claim to attend church regularly. Even after the
1980s' plunge in league bowling, nearly 3 percent of
American adults regularly bowl in leagues.) The rise
of solo bowling threatens the livelihood of
bowling-lane proprietors because those who bowl as
members of leagues consume three times as much beer
and pizza as solo bowlers, and the money in bowling is
in the beer and pizza, not the balls and shoes. The
broader social significance, however, lies in the
social interaction and even occasionally civic
conversations over beer and pizza that solo bowlers
forgo. Whether or not bowling beats balloting in the
eyes of most Americans, bowling teams illustrate yet
another vanishing form of social capital.

Countertrends

At this point, however, we must confront a serious
counterargument. Perhaps the traditional forms of
civic organization whose decay we have been tracing
have been replaced by vibrant new organizations. For
example, national environmental organizations (like
the Sierra Club) and feminist groups (like the
National Organization for Women) grew rapidly [End
Page 70] during the 1970s and 1980s and now count
hundreds of thousands of dues-paying members. An even
more dramatic example is the American Association of
Retired Persons (AARP), which grew exponentially from
400,000 card-carrying members in 1960 to 33 million in
1993, becoming (after the Catholic Church) the largest
private organization in the world. The national
administrators of these organizations are among the
most feared lobbyists in Washington, in large part
because of their massive mailing lists of presumably
loyal members.

These new mass-membership organizations are plainly of
great political importance. From the point of view of
social connectedness, however, they are sufficiently
different from classic "secondary associations" that
we need to invent a new label--perhaps "tertiary
associations." For the vast majority of their members,
the only act of membership consists in writing a check
for dues or perhaps occasionally reading a newsletter.
Few ever attend any meetings of such organizations,
and most are unlikely ever (knowingly) to encounter
any other member. The bond between any two members of
the Sierra Club is less like the bond between any two
members of a gardening club and more like the bond
between any two Red Sox fans (or perhaps any two
devoted Honda owners): they root for the same team and
they share some of the same interests, but they are
unaware of each other's existence. Their ties, in
short, are to common symbols, common leaders, and
perhaps common ideals, but not to one another. The
theory of social capital argues that associational
membership should, for example, increase social trust,
but this prediction is much less straightforward with
regard to membership in tertiary associations. From
the point of view of social connectedness, the
Environmental Defense Fund and a bowling league are
just not in the same category.

If the growth of tertiary organizations represents one
potential (but probably not real) counterexample to my
thesis, a second countertrend is represented by the
growing prominence of nonprofit organizations,
especially nonprofit service agencies. This so-called
third sector includes everything from Oxfam and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Ford Foundation and
the Mayo Clinic. In other words, although most
secondary associations are nonprofits, most nonprofit
agencies are not secondary associations. To identify
trends in the size of the nonprofit sector with trends
in social connectedness would be another fundamental
conceptual mistake. 7

A third potential countertrend is much more relevant
to an assessment of social capital and civic
engagement. Some able researchers have argued that the
last few decades have witnessed a rapid expansion in
"support groups" of various sorts. Robert Wuthnow
reports that fully 40 percent of all Americans claim
to be "currently involved in [a] small group that
meets regularly and provides support or caring for
those who participate in it." 8 Many of these groups
are religiously affiliated, but [End Page 71] many
others are not. For example, nearly 5 percent of
Wuthnow's national sample claim to participate
regularly in a "self-help" group, such as Alcoholics
Anonymous, and nearly as many say they belong to
book-discussion groups and hobby clubs.

The groups described by Wuthnow's respondents
unquestionably represent an important form of social
capital, and they need to be accounted for in any
serious reckoning of trends in social connectedness.
On the other hand, they do not typically play the same
role as traditional civic associations. As Wuthnow
emphasizes,


Small groups may not be fostering community as
effectively as many of their proponents would like.
Some small groups merely provide occasions for
individuals to focus on themselves in the presence of
others. The social contract binding members together
asserts only the weakest of obligations. Come if you
have time. Talk if you feel like it. Respect
everyone's opinion. Never criticize. Leave quietly if
you become dissatisfied. . . . We can imagine that
[these small groups] really substitute for families,
neighborhoods, and broader community attachments that
may demand lifelong commitments, when, in fact, they
do not. 9
All three of these potential countertrends--tertiary
organizations, nonprofit organizations, and support
groups--need somehow to be weighed against the erosion
of conventional civic organizations. One way of doing
so is to consult the General Social Survey.

Within all educational categories, total associational
membership declined significantly between 1967 and
1993. Among the college-educated, the average number
of group memberships per person fell from 2.8 to 2.0
(a 26-percent decline); among high-school graduates,
the number fell from 1.8 to 1.2 (32 percent); and
among those with fewer than 12 years of education, the
number fell from 1.4 to 1.1 (25 percent). In other
words, at all educational (and hence social) levels of
American society, and counting all sorts of group
memberships, the average number of associational
memberships has fallen by about a fourth over the last
quarter-century. Without controls for educational
levels, the trend is not nearly so clear, but the
central point is this: more Americans than ever before
are in social circumstances that foster associational
involvement (higher education, middle age, and so on),
but nevertheless aggregate associational membership
appears to be stagnant or declining.

Broken down by type of group, the downward trend is
most marked for church-related groups, for labor
unions, for fraternal and veterans' organizations, and
for school-service groups. Conversely, membership in
professional associations has risen over these years,
although less than might have been predicted, given
sharply rising educational and occupational levels.
Essentially the same trends are evident for both men
and women in the sample. In short, the available
survey evidence [End Page 72] confirms our earlier
conclusion: American social capital in the form of
civic associations has significantly eroded over the
last generation.

Good Neighborliness and Social Trust
I noted earlier that most readily available
quantitative evidence on trends in social
connectedness involves formal settings, such as the
voting booth, the union hall, or the PTA. One glaring
exception is so widely discussed as to require little
comment here: the most fundamental form of social
capital is the family, and the massive evidence of the
loosening of bonds within the family (both extended
and nuclear) is well known. This trend, of course, is
quite consistent with--and may help to explain--our
theme of social decapitalization.

A second aspect of informal social capital on which we
happen to have reasonably reliable time-series data
involves neighborliness. In each General Social Survey
since 1974 respondents have been asked, "How often do
you spend a social evening with a neighbor?" The
proportion of Americans who socialize with their
neighbors more than once a year has slowly but
steadily declined over the last two decades, from 72
percent in 1974 to 61 percent in 1993. (On the other
hand, socializing with "friends who do not live in
your neighborhood" appears to be on the increase, a
trend that may reflect the growth of workplace-based
social connections.)

Americans are also less trusting. The proportion of
Americans saying that most people can be trusted fell
by more than a third between 1960, when 58 percent
chose that alternative, and 1993, when only 37 percent
did. The same trend is apparent in all educational
groups; indeed, because social trust is also
correlated with education and because educational
levels have risen sharply, the overall decrease in
social trust is even more apparent if we control for
education.

Our discussion of trends in social connectedness and
civic engagement has tacitly assumed that all the
forms of social capital that we have discussed are
themselves coherently correlated across individuals.
This is in fact true. Members of associations are much
more likely than nonmembers to participate in
politics, to spend time with neighbors, to express
social trust, and so on.

The close correlation between social trust and
associational membership is true not only across time
and across individuals, but also across countries.
Evidence from the 1991 World Values Survey
demonstrates the following: 10

Across the 35 countries in this survey, social trust
and civic engagement are strongly correlated; the
greater the density of associational membership in a
society, the more trusting its citizens. Trust and
engagement are two facets of the same underlying
factor--social capital. [End Page 73]
America still ranks relatively high by cross-national
standards on both these dimensions of social capital.
Even in the 1990s, after several decades' erosion,
Americans are more trusting and more engaged than
people in most other countries of the world.
The trends of the past quarter-century, however, have
apparently moved the United States significantly lower
in the international rankings of social capital. The
recent deterioration in American social capital has
been sufficiently great that (if no other country
changed its position in the meantime) another
quarter-century of change at the same rate would bring
the United States, roughly speaking, to the midpoint
among all these countries, roughly equivalent to South
Korea, Belgium, or Estonia today. Two generations'
decline at the same rate would leave the United States
at the level of today's Chile, Portugal, and Slovenia.

Why Is U.S. Social Capital Eroding?
As we have seen, something has happened in America in
the last two or three decades to diminish civic
engagement and social connectedness. What could that
"something" be? Here are several possible
explanations, along with some initial evidence on
each.

The movement of women into the labor force. Over these
same two or three decades, many millions of American
women have moved out of the home into paid employment.
This is the primary, though not the sole, reason why
the weekly working hours of the average American have
increased significantly during these years. It seems
highly plausible that this social revolution should
have reduced the time and energy available for
building social capital. For certain organizations,
such as the PTA, the League of Women Voters, the
Federation of Women's Clubs, and the Red Cross, this
is almost certainly an important part of the story.
The sharpest decline in women's civic participation
seems to have come in the 1970s; membership in such
"women's" organizations as these has been virtually
halved since the late 1960s. By contrast, most of the
decline in participation in men's organizations
occurred about ten years later; the total decline to
date has been approximately 25 percent for the typical
organization. On the other hand, the survey data imply
that the aggregate declines for men are virtually as
great as those for women. It is logically possible, of
course, that the male declines might represent the
knock-on effect of women's liberation, as dishwashing
crowded out the lodge, but time-budget studies suggest
that most husbands of working wives have assumed only
a minor part of the housework. In short, something
besides the women's revolution seems to lie behind the
erosion of social capital.

Mobility: The "re-potting" hypothesis. Numerous
studies of organizational involvement have shown that
residential stability and such related phenomena as
homeownership are clearly associated with greater [End
Page 74] civic engagement. Mobility, like frequent
re-potting of plants, tends to disrupt root systems,
and it takes time for an uprooted individual to put
down new roots. It seems plausible that the
automobile, suburbanization, and the movement to the
Sun Belt have reduced the social rootedness of the
average American, but one fundamental difficulty with
this hypothesis is apparent: the best evidence shows
that residential stability and homeownership in
America have risen modestly since 1965, and are surely
higher now than during the 1950s, when civic
engagement and social connectedness by our measures
was definitely higher.

Other demographic transformations. A range of
additional changes have transformed the American
family since the 1960s--fewer marriages, more
divorces, fewer children, lower real wages, and so on.
Each of these changes might account for some of the
slackening of civic engagement, since married,
middle-class parents are generally more socially
involved than other people. Moreover, the changes in
scale that have swept over the American economy in
these years--illustrated by the replacement of the
corner grocery by the supermarket and now perhaps of
the supermarket by electronic shopping at home, or the
replacement of community-based enterprises by outposts
of distant multinational firms--may perhaps have
undermined the material and even physical basis for
civic engagement.

The technological transformation of leisure. There is
reason to believe that deep-seated technological
trends are radically "privatizing" or
"individualizing" our use of leisure time and thus
disrupting many opportunities for social-capital
formation. The most obvious and probably the most
powerful instrument of this revolution is television.
Time-budget studies in the 1960s showed that the
growth in time spent watching television dwarfed all
other changes in the way Americans passed their days
and nights. Television has made our communities (or,
rather, what we experience as our communities) wider
and shallower. In the language of economics,
electronic technology enables individual tastes to be
satisfied more fully, but at the cost of the positive
social externalities associated with more primitive
forms of entertainment. The same logic applies to the
replacement of vaudeville by the movies and now of
movies by the VCR. The new "virtual reality" helmets
that we will soon don to be entertained in total
isolation are merely the latest extension of this
trend. Is technology thus driving a wedge between our
individual interests and our collective interests? It
is a question that seems worth exploring more
systematically.

What Is to Be Done?
The last refuge of a social-scientific scoundrel is to
call for more research. Nevertheless, I cannot forbear
from suggesting some further lines of inquiry. [End
Page 75]


We must sort out the dimensions of social capital,
which clearly is not a unidimensional concept, despite
language (even in this essay) that implies the
contrary. What types of organizations and networks
most effectively embody--or generate--social capital,
in the sense of mutual reciprocity, the resolution of
dilemmas of collective action, and the broadening of
social identities? In this essay I have emphasized the
density of associational life. In earlier work I
stressed the structure of networks, arguing that
"horizontal" ties represented more productive social
capital than vertical ties. 11

Another set of important issues involves
macrosociological crosscurrents that might intersect
with the trends described here. What will be the
impact, for example, of electronic networks on social
capital? My hunch is that meeting in an electronic
forum is not the equivalent of meeting in a bowling
alley--or even in a saloon--but hard empirical
research is needed. What about the development of
social capital in the workplace? Is it growing in
counterpoint to the decline of civic engagement,
reflecting some social analogue of the first law of
thermodynamics--social capital is neither created nor
destroyed, merely redistributed? Or do the trends
described in this essay represent a deadweight loss?

A rounded assessment of changes in American social
capital over the last quarter-century needs to count
the costs as well as the benefits of community
engagement. We must not romanticize small-town,
middle-class civic life in the America of the 1950s.
In addition to the deleterious trends emphasized in
this essay, recent decades have witnessed a
substantial decline in intolerance and probably also
in overt discrimination, and those beneficent trends
may be related in complex ways to the erosion of
traditional social capital. Moreover, a balanced
accounting of the social-capital books would need to
reconcile the insights of this approach with the
undoubted insights offered by Mancur Olson and others
who stress that closely knit social, economic, and
political organizations are prone to inefficient
cartelization and to what political economists term
"rent seeking" and ordinary men and women call
corruption. 12

Finally, and perhaps most urgently, we need to explore
creatively how public policy impinges on (or might
impinge on) social-capital formation. In some
well-known instances, public policy has destroyed
highly effective social networks and norms. American
slum-clearance policy of the 1950s and 1960s, for
example, renovated physical capital, [End Page 76] but
at a very high cost to existing social capital. The
consolidation of country post offices and small school
districts has promised administrative and financial
efficiencies, but full-cost accounting for the effects
of these policies on social capital might produce a
more negative verdict. On the other hand, such past
initiatives as the county agricultural-agent system,
community colleges, and tax deductions for charitable
contributions illustrate that government can encourage
social-capital formation. Even a recent proposal in
San Luis Obispo, California, to require that all new
houses have front porches illustrates the power of
government to influence where and how networks are
formed.
The concept of "civil society" has played a central
role in the recent global debate about the
preconditions for democracy and democratization. In
the newer democracies this phrase has properly focused
attention on the need to foster a vibrant civic life
in soils traditionally inhospitable to
self-government. In the established democracies,
ironically, growing numbers of citizens are
questioning the effectiveness of their public
institutions at the very moment when liberal democracy
has swept the battlefield, both ideologically and
geopolitically. In America, at least, there is reason
to suspect that this democratic disarray may be linked
to a broad and continuing erosion of civic engagement
that began a quarter-century ago. High on our
scholarly agenda should be the question of whether a
comparable erosion of social capital may be under way
in other advanced democracies, perhaps in different
institutional and behavioral guises. High on America's
agenda should be the question of how to reverse these
adverse trends in social connectedness, thus restoring
civic engagement and civic trust.

3*HUMOR
PUPPET GEORGE
http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm

4*NOVELTY
How Bridget Jones are you?
http://www.icircle.com/flash/bridget/

5*AVATAR OF THE ZEITGEIST
"A new comic book series aimed at young conservatives envisions a dark liberal dystopia"
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/20...america?mode=PF

6* DAILY UTILITY
Girly Fun Jean Charm
http://www.idoradesigns.com/girlyfunjc.htm

7*CARTOON
Lambiek Comiclopedia
http://www.lambiek.net/artists/index.htm

8*PRESCRIPTION
From NEWSWEEK 20051003
ALLERGIES
http://www.aafa.org
http://www.pollen.com

9*RUMOR PATROL
From "Tom Blue"
Let us move forward not back
Impeach this dastardly killer of our future
http://www.nion.us/

10*LAGNIAPPE
From IN THESE TIMES 20050620
THE PEACE TREE
http://www.thepeacetree.org

11*DEVIATIONS FROM THE PREPARED TEXT:
A REVIEW OF OTHER MEDIA
TIGERSAW
Kimchee Records
Sing!
11 songs

This ensemble project is a quirky tapestry featuring scads of guest musicians and lots of (though not nearly enough) ensemble singing. It isn't Sgt.-Pepper-for-the-new-millennium, nowhere near---it's not even Syd Barrett, but it's at least as likable as, say, Hoboken Saturday Night by The Insect Trust, and far more likable than most of the rather twee output of The Incredible String Band. (Note: all you hipsters who profess to love Nick Drake but won't give this a tumble have holes in your heads.) It's a mixed bag, mostly sweet and spacy, and if songs like "The Sun" and "The Tiger and the Tailor" are uneffacably touching, the brief piano instrumental "Snow" is absolutely majestic, and if tunes like "For Adrian" or "The Sea" are merely kosmik with a lowercase k, the spaced-cowboy lament "Lord Knows I Need My Own Place to Stay" is a capital-C Classic in any canon. Tigersaw is loose but never lax, and few bands exploring their outer territory are anywhere near as sharp or, for that matter, significant.

CONTROVERSIES IN POPULAR CULTURE
244. BEST BOSTON ROCK SONGS

Not a bad list, but not a great one.

Where are....

Don't Look Back. The Remains.
Till the Stroke of Dawn. The Psychopaths.
Ground Zero. Prima Donna.
Jeffrey I Hear You. The Girls.
Lou Miami & The Kozmetix. Fascist Lover
Moving Targets. Changing Your Mind.
The Freeze. It's Only Alcohol.
Christmas. 100 Million Flowers.
Dredd Foole & the Din. Sanctuary.
Sons of Sappho. Amway.
The Oysters. My Caroline.
Salem 66. Playground.
The Last Sacrifice. Suspended.
Bumper Crop. Volcano Suns.
Filled With Leeches. The Zinnias.
Hate My Way. Throwing Muses.
Song to Be Beautiful. Big Dipper.
Faith Has Another. Lazy Susan.
Green Magnet School. Windshield.
Baby Ray. Big Sun's A-Comin'.

ALSO SEE:
http://www.collectorscum.com/volume3/mass/

TO CONCLUDE:

12*APPROBATION AND OPPROBRIUM
*1From: RMS
Dear  Francis,

I was thinking of just coming down for the day sometime, so more extensive hospitality would not be necessary—but whatever works for you. I would not wish to disturb the beagle turds. (A sentence that may never have been uttered before in the English language.)

Contests: the song that gives you the most pleasure to turn off when it comes on the radio. My current selection:

Natalie Merchant, "Wonder"

The song that makes you switch the station the fastest when you realize it is coming on. My current choice:

Harry Chapin, "Cat's in the Cradle"

And this:

Q: What's a nanosecond?
A: The interval between the time when your brain registers that you are listening to a Christian rock station  and the time your finger hits the button on the radio.

Something you realize, e.g., when driving across this great benighted land of ours.

By the way, you can put all this on your newsletters; my permission is hereby granted. I think the author of Inner Christianity should go on record as detesting Christian rock.
I remain, sir, &c., &c.,
R.